Kania assures allies

Press, 26 February 1981, Page 6

Kania assures allies

NZPA-Reuter Moscow The Czechoslovak and Hungarian Communist Party chiefs attacked the West over the Polish crisis yesterday after the Polish party leader, Stanislaw Kania, assured the Soviet Communist Party Congress that his own party could handle his country’s problems. Shortly .after Mr Kania’s speech, the Czechoslovak party leader, Gustav Husak, told nearly 5000 delegates in the Kremlin that alleged Western attempts to break the unity of the socialist camp were certain to fail. In a speech issued by the Soviet news agency, Tass (the congress is closed to the Western press), Mr Husak said: “Hopes of undermining the international prestige gained by the Soviet Union as a result of its principled, peace-lov-ing Leninist policy are to be unsuccessful.

“The unceasing attempts of international reaction to split the unity of the socialist countries and even wrench away one of them from the .family of socialist States is bound to fail,” he said. Speaking immediately

after Mr Husak, the Hungarian pafrty chief, Janos Kadar, said the “enemies of socialism” were counting on a weakening of socialism in Poland.

Echoing the words of Mr Kania, he said: “Poland was, is?, and will bp a member of the family of socialist countijies.” A grave-faced Mr Kania toSd the Communist delegates earlier that his party had the strength and will do prevent any counter-revolu-tion in Poland. The East. German leader, Erich Honecker, was quoted by'the A.D.N. news agency as ,telling the congress that the Soviet bloc was now facing increased dangers from unspecified . “international developments”. Without mentioning Poland, he said the dangers made it clear that the strength of the Soviet bloc lay *in its unity and unanimity! on the foundation of the proven principles of marxism-leninism and proletarian internationalism”.

Soviet television appeared to have dropped these remarks from its account of Mr Hpnecker’s speech. On .Monday, Mr Brezhnev

suggested that the time wa. ripe for a United States-Sw-viet summit meeting and made proposals for a framework for strategic arms limitation talks. A Soviet Embassy official in Washington, Valentin Kamenev, said yesterday the Soviet Union was willing to renegotiate S.A.L.T. 11, the first time a Soviet official has said explicitly that the treaty could be renegotiated. William Dyess, the United States State Department spokesman, said Mr Kamenev’s remarks were “interesting. We may even have to go to the Soviets to get some clarification,” Mr Dyess said.

The British Prime Minister (Mrs Margaret .Thatcher), commenting on President Brezhnev’s speech, said the best way to improve EastWest relations was "not to make speeches but to withdraw troops from Afghanistan.”

Mrs Thatcher rejected Mr Brezhnev’s proposal for a freeze on medium-range nuclear missiles in Europe because she said it would only benefit the Soviet Union which had more of the weapons.