Israel returns back its ambassador to Austria

Israel’s foreign minister Shalom Silvan yesterday announced the return back of the Israeli ambassador to Austria after the reduction of Israeli diplomatic representation in Vienna to the level of charge de affairs that lasted for three years in protest of the participation of the rightist leader of Austrian freedom party Yorg Haider in a governmental coalition at that time.

Silvan added after meeting with his Austrian peer in Jerusalem yesterday that "after three and a half years, we have decided to resume our diplomatic relations with Austria, fully," adding that "Israel will appoint now an ambassador in Vienna and will end all restrictions it had imposed on its relations with Austria."

For her part, the Austrian minister said that "Austria welcomes the resumption of diplomatic relations in Vienna at the ambassadorial level. The Austrian minister who is the first Austrian official at that level to visit Israel since the arrival of the extremist right to authority in Austria, visited "Yas Faschim " monument for the killing of the Jewish holocaust where she laid a wreath, before a meeting she had held with Silvan who accompanied her in her visit to the monument.