Two Soviet diplomats ordered out of Sweden

Sweden Thursday ordered two Soviet diplomats to leave the country for what the Foreign Ministry described as activities incompatible with their diplomatic status.

The ministry said Yuri Averine, consul in the western city of Gothenburg, and Piotr Skirokij, assistant military attache at the Stockholm Embassy, had been declared persona non grata. Ministry officials declined to comment on press reports that the diplomats had been involved in industrial espionage to beat a United States embargo on the sale of high technology to the Soviet Union that was imposed because of events in Poland.