Call for ‘constructive’ meeting

Press, 22 October 1980, Page 8

Call for ‘constructive’ meeting

NZPA-Reuter j Moscow ? Foreign Ministers of the seven-nation Warsaw Pact have said they want a ‘‘constructive atmosphere,” without political confrontation at next, month’s European Security Review Conference in Madrid. J A lengthy policy statement oh the forthcoming' confer-

’ ence, the second all-European meeting of its,type since the i Helsinki European Security .conference in 1975, was issu- ■ ed in Moscow by the. Soviet ■ news agency, T'ass, after a : two-day meeting of Ministers in Warsaw. 1 The call for a “constructive : atmosphere,”' reflected the ■Soviet' bloc’s reluctance to get

involved in detailed argu- > ment with the West over how the 1975 agreements, which included human. rights : pledges, have been fulfilled.' The Foreign Ministers also issued a-statement reaffirming their, traditional policies with only the slightest hint .of concern about Poland’s 1 labour turmoil and the rise of the Communist bloc’s first' in-

dependent trade union movement.

The Ministers wound' up their meeting by calling for renewed disarmament initiatives, and the pursuit of detente. The Ministers also called again for the convening of a new European military and detente conference in Warsaw. ••■ ~ '• f"