Cool-off halt for Madrid talks

Press, 10 March 1982, Page 8

Cool-off halt for Madrid talks

NZPA-Reuter . Madrid Despite an agreement for a seven-month cooling off period, Western natiops at the European Security Conference plan to maintain criticism of the military take-over in Poland, Western officials said yesterday. They reported that delegates to the marathon 35State conference have agreed to adjourn on Friday, probably until November 9, because the West refused to negotiate further on detente and human rights while martial law continued in Poland. The officials said they had reached “a firm gentlemen’s agreement” with the Soviet Union on the adjournment. In informal week-end negotiations, the Soviet Union asked N.A.T.O. countries to tone down attacks over Poland this week. But the N.A.T.O. delegates refused, the officials said.

It was agreed to hold three committee meetings this week. But the officials said Western delegates would almost certainly sit in silence as they had done since the conference reconvened on February 8.

The Warsaw Pact allies took the view that the military crackdown in Poland was an internal affair of no concen to the conference. But the West said that to negotiate more accords while previous ones were broken in Poland would make the conference a sham. The Madrid, conference has been in session since November, 1980. It was supposed to finish a year ago with new detente accords to complement agreements signed at the first security conference in Helsinki in 1975. But the tense international climate, heightened by the Soviet military intervention

in Afghanistan, alleged East bloc violations of humanrights commitments arid, most recently, declaration of martial law in Poland have prevented any concrete decisions from being reached