Mikonis and Sneh [Israeli Communist Kneset (Parliament) Members] were apparently instructed by the Prime Minister’s office to submit a list of 13 questions to the heads of the international department of the Soviet Communist Party. Suslov and Ponemarev responded in a meeting which took place in Moscow saying that the Soviet Union had always acknowledged Israel’s right to exist and had been making strenuous efforts to dissuade its Arab allies from starting a war against it. The two Soviet officials also implicitly endorsed the view that current Israeli Prime Minister, Levy Eshkol, was taking a more moderate and conciliatory line in his relations with Moscow.

Primakov came to hear a concrete offer from Golda on how to push the peace process forward. The Prime Minister was unwilling to go into specifics. Primakov informed Golda that as far as the Soviet Union was concerned there was a linkage between Israeli concessions and immigration of Jews from the Soviet Union. According to Primakov, as long as the Arab-Israeli conflict remained unsettled, the Soviet Union could not be seen as acting against the interests of its Arab allies by allowing unrestricted Jewish immigration from the Soviet Union to Israel.