Moscow abandons hope of better ties

Press, 27 March 1981, Page 5

Moscow abandons hope of better ties

NZPA-Reuter Moscow The Soviet Union launched its sharpest attack to date on the Reagan Administration yesterday, accusing it of “unprecedented superarming” and increasing world tension but repeating Moscow was ready to hold talks. The Communist Party newspaper, “Pravda,” in an article clearly representing Kremlin thinking, said the new American leadership had from the start been bent “not on rectifying but on multiplying the errors” of the previous Carter Administration.

Western analysts said the comment indicated the Kremlin now has shelved hopes of a quick improvement in Soviet-American relations under the Reagan Administration after the presidency of Jimmy Carter, who was treated with open

contempt by Moscow towards the end of his term. The lengthy “Pravda” article, written under the penname of Igor Alexandrov, indicating high-level authorship, echoed for the most part much of what the Soviet President, Leonid Brezhnev, said on Soviet-American relations at last month’s Spviet Communist Party congress. Western diplomats noted that though it repeated Mr.. Brezhnev’s call for “an active dialogue at all levels” between Washington and Moscow, it did not carry his call for a summit meeting with Mr Reagan. Western diplomats cautioned that the omission probably did not represent a withdrawal, by Moscow of the summit offer but rather indicated concern that discussion of a top-level meeting should not obscure the specific proposals put for-

ward by the Soviet Union. Moscow has shown signs of frustration that many of the proposals presented by Mr Brezhnev at the party congress have not been treated by the West as seriously as it hoped and were partly overshadowed at the time by his reference to a possible sum-, mit meeting. The tough wording of the “Pravda” article appeared to signal an end to the Kremlin’s ■ cautious wait-and-see-policy towards the Reagan Administration pursued since it took office. Many Western analysts have been surprised the Soviet Union has maintained a moderate response towards the Reagan Administration in spite of Washington’s early charges that Moscow promoted international terrorism and would “commit any crime” to further world communism.