U.N. awaits Soviet reply after harsh criticism

Press, 27 May 1978, Page 8

U.N. awaits Soviet reply after harsh criticism

NZPA-Reuter New York The Soviet Foreign Minis- ' ter (Mr Andrei Gromyko) is expected to respond today (N.Z. time) to the sharp attack on Moscow’s military posture in Europe and Africa delivered at ' the ! United Nations by the American Vice-President (Mr [Walter Mondale). Fresh from talks on Thursday with the Secretary of State (Mr Cyrus Vance) Mr Gromyko asked to address the Genera! Assembly at its morning meeting. i The West German Chancellor (Mr Helmut Schmidt) and the Canadian Prime i Minister (Mr Pierre Trudeau) 'also were scheduled to lappear before the 149-nation body, on the third day of the debate on disarmament for which the assembly was convened special session. Neither Mr Schmidt nor Mr Trudeau has ever addressed the United Nations, but for years Mr Gromyko has made Moscow’s call for general and complete disarmament a major theme of his speeches in the world forum. Mr Mondale surprised many delegates by announcing on Wednesday that the Atlantic allies, due to hold a summit session next week, must increase their defence spending to meet the threat posed by an unprecedented Communist military build-up in Europe, including deployment of the SS2O nuclear missile.

The deployment of several hundred SS2Os, each with three nuclear warheads, ran totally contrary to all the special United Nations session sought to achieve, Mr Mondale said. In an allusion to the Soviet involvement in Africa, he said: “We cannot have countries pouring arms into the developing world while at the same time devoting minimal funding to development assistance.” Before his meeting with Mr Gromyko o. Thursday, Mr Vance said he planned to speak very frankly to the Russian about Africa, where

both Cuba and the Soviet Union maintain a force of several thousand “military advisers.” A senior American official told reporters before the Thursday meeting that only two major issues remained in the way of a new S.A.L.T. agreement: on limitations on the Soviet “backfire” bomber and the question of modernisation of existing intercontinental ballistic missiles. Presiden. Carter and Mr V nee will again confer with the Soviet Foreign Minister at the week-end, in the continuing effort to arrive at a S.A.L.T. accord. Mr Carter said in Chicago on Thursday that it was so important to. world security that nothing should be allowed to prevent the concluding o. a treaty.

Mr Schmidt and Mr Trudeau, who will attend the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation summit conference in Washington, were both expected to emphasise in their General Assembly statements that greater international confidence was a prerequisite for meaningful progress on disarmament accords.

This was a point made in New York on Thursday by President Valery Giscard d’Estaing of France, who proposed a conference of all the 35 countries which took

part in the Helsinki meetings on European security and co-operation.

The President later told reporters it should be possible to convene the conference, which would concentrate on reducing the EastWest disparity in conventional arms, by the end of next year. Mr Giscard told the United Nations: “If we succeed we will have improved security on the European continent by defusing the detonator where it lies, and will have opened to the world’ the prospect of a future less fraught with danger.” President Giscard, making the first appearance by a French head of State at the United Nations General Assemblv, proposed the .European disarmament con- ; ference as part of an extenI sive French programme to end the global arms race. Other features of the programme were an international system of observation satellites to make sure nations keep to their disarmament commitments, a special development fund fed I by taxes levied on heavily armed countries, and creai tion of a world institute for disarmament. France also proposed that : the existing 30-nation Geneva Disarmament Conference under the co-chairmanship of the United States and the Soviet Union be replaced by a more representative forum, with an open membership and equal standing for all participants. Arafat offer The Palestinian commando leader, Yasser Arafat, has offered to mediate to end the war between Ethiopia and Eritrean guerrillas, a Beirut newspaper has said. Quoting Palestinian sources. “Al-Liwa” said that Mr Arafat had informed the Soviet ambassador to Beirut (Mr Alexander Soldatov) of his offer. The Ethiopian authorities and the Eritrean guerrillas were also informed, the paper said. —Beirut.