Resumed Test Ban Talks Sought By U.S., Britain

Press, Volume C, Issue 29671, 15 November 1961, Page 19

Resumed Test Ban Talks Sought By U.S., Britain

(N-Z.P.A.-Reuter— Copyright) —— • WASHINGTON, November 14. The United States will pursue “a carefully circumscribed” programme of nuclear testing until a comprehensive agreement to ban tests is worked out.

The State Department said this yesterday, simultaneously with publication of. a United States Note to the Soviet Union calling jointly with Britain for a resumption of test ban talks in Geneva on November 28. A spokesman for the department said the United States would not abandon its objective of a safeguarded agreement, “but will pursue its own programme of carefully circumscribed testing until such agreement is reached.” Western Notes The proposal to resume the Geneva talks was made in identical Notes handed to the Soviet Foreign Ministry in Moscow yesterday. , The Geneva conference on the discontinuance of nuclear weapons tests recessed on September 9 shortly after the Soviet Union had resumed its atmospheric tests. The United States Note, published in Washington yesterday, recalled that the United States and British delegates had proposed a recess until after the completion of the United Nations General Assembly debate on the nuclear test question. The Note said the United Nations General Assembly had now completed its debate and had “ovsrwhelmngly adopted a resolution calling for resumption of negotiations on a nuclear weapons test ban. '"The United States Government therefore formally proposes to the Government of the U.SS.R. that the meetings of the conference on the discontinuance of nuclear weapons tests be resumed on November 28,” it said.

United States officials said that the two Western Powers were not demanding that the Russians should stop testing before negotiations could be started. The United States statement that the United States “will pursue its own pro-

gramme of carefully cireumacribed testing until such an agreement is reached” referred to two things, officials explained:— 1. To the current United States underground tests; and 2. To the possibility that the United States would resume testing in the atmosphere. The words “carefully circumscribed,” meant that even if the United States followed the Soviet example at atmospheric tests they would be done with utmost caution to reduce the danger of nuclear fall-out. the Associated Press reported. Soviet Reaction There was no immediate information in Moscow as to whether the Russians would accept the offer, but last week the chief Soviet delegate to the United Nations (Mr Valerian Zorin) seemed to rule out such a possibility, the Associated Press recalled. He said a nuclear test-ban treaty must be worked out within the framework of a general disarmament agreement.

The British United Press, m a dispatch from Moscow, also said it was doubted that

the answer would be favourable since Russia was now maintaining that such a conference must be linked with general disarmament. The Geneva talks were "receased” after the Soviet Union broke the moratorium on nuclear testing on September 1. Since then, the Russians have exploded more than 30 nuclear devices and have indicated they are prepared to go on testing if need be. The British and the Ameri. can Notes yesterday reminded the Russians that a resolution passed by the General Assembly on November 8 called for a resumption of the nuclear test ban talks. The Notes also reminded the Soviet Union that the joint Soviet, British and American communique which announced the recess of the Geneva talks did in fact use the word "recess.” The Notes said that if the date November 28 did not suit the Soviet Union, Britain and the United States would be willing to consider another date, but it would have to be one which would permit a progress report to the United Nations before December 14. The General Assembly resolution called for such a report by that date.