Plan 'absurd'

Press, 22 July 1981, Page 9

Plan 'absurd'

N’ZPA Madrid East and West split sharply over security proposals yesterday at the deadlocked 35-nation meeting on human rights and detente. The American delegation chief. Max Kampelman. stopped short of saying the European Security Conference that began last November 11 was, al a dead end. But he called a Soviet proposal on security and confidence building measures in • Europe “ludicrous and absurd" and said its language offered “no basis for negotiation." The head of the Soviet delegation. the Deputy Foreign Minister (Mr Leonid Ilyichevj. said that there were "sharp divergencies" and said the West was guilty of violating the reciprocity and balance of the 1975 Helsinki agreements, which the conference is reviewing and trying to improve. The. new East-West confrontation swept aside optimism on both sides for the

meeting to reach final agreement and end by .July 31. The British chief delegate. John Wilberforce, said agreement was still “technically possible" but Western delegates were now considering adjournment until the northern autumn unless agreement was reached in the next two weeks. He described the Soviet bloc as being “on a hook, because they want success here rather than failure, and ■because it would be a setback to their peace offensive. We are not going to let them off the hook." The disagreement came over security surveillance measures. The Soviets said they would accept verifiable surveillance of security in Europe to the Soviet Ural Mountains in return for equal distance of sea and air space for non-European members of the security conference. meaning the United Stales and Canada. Mr Kempelman said this could mean surveillance across the Atlantic.