Powers renew efforts to cut back N-arsenals

Press, 30 June 1982, Page 9

Powers renew efforts to cut back N-arsenals

NZPA-Reuter Geneva American and Soviet negotiators are opening new efforts today to cut down the numbers of long-range nuclear missiles directed at each other, with both sides saying they mean business and want quick progress.

The talks, aimed at limiting the 14.000 ballistic warheads deployed by the two super-Powers. are beginning with a formal meeting at the Soviet mission to the United Nations in Geneva. They will then alternate twice a week at United States and Soviet offices at either end of the Avenue de la Paix (Avenue of Peace). They are the first strategic arms talks for three years. The seven-man teams will be led by a retired United States Army general. Edward Rowny. and Viktor Karpov, of the'Soviet Union. They are tough and experienced negotiators who know each other well from earlier strategic arms talks and are each fluent in the other’s language. Both sides say they want serious talks ending in big arms cuts.

The new talks, running parallel to similar talks on medium-range missiles in Europe already under way in Geneva, come against a background of mounting public concern in Western Europe and the United States about danger of nuclear war. Washington and Moscow have come up with offers

and counter-proposals in recent months for slowing down the nuclear arms race and reassuring public opinion. President Ronald Reagan has proposed a one-third cut in inter-continental warheads and says that the two nations should dismantle 2400 missiles. leaving 850 on each side.

President Leonid Brezhnev came back with a proposal to freeze strategic weapons and pledged at the United Nations two weeks ago that his country would not be the first to use nuclear weapons. Mr Karpov challenged the United States to follow suit immediately after arriving from Moscow at the weekend.

Senior American officials said that negotiating a freeze would waste time. But they said that Washington was guardedly hopeful about first Soviet reactions to the American plan and were now waiting to see Moscow's negotiating position in more detail. They said that the main incentive for the Soviets to negotiate was their concern over Mr Reagan’s huge rearmament programme and the knowledge that agreed cuts would force limits on. projected MX and Trident 2 missiles which Moscow regarded as a particular threat.

One American official said it was of particular importance to limit ballistic mis-

siles since these were the most dangerous weapons, “quick, highly accurate and virtually impossible to defend against, unlike weapons like bombers which can be called back.” Moscow described as lopsided American proposals that each side should be allowed to site on land onlyhalf of the missiles left after cuts. The Soviet Union houses nearly 80 per cent of its missiles in ground silos while the United States carries about two-tnirds of its warheads in submarines.

Under the American plan the Russians would give up about 3400 land-based warheads and the Americans about 2500 seaborne weapons in the first phase of a reduction programme. After today's mainly organisational meeting the American team will outline its negotiating position at a first working session at the United Stales mission tomorrow. The Americans think they may need four to eight weeks to present their proposals in full. Both sides appear to believe that the long -years of talks needed for earlier Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT) can be "cut down. American officials said that the basic figures of weapons • were" known and there was no need to argue much about definitions.

Mr Karpov said on arrival: "We are ready to conclude the talks quickly."!