Pact spells out offer

Press, 8 January 1983, Page 8

Pact spells out offer

NZPA Prague The Warsaw Pact, called yesterday for a mutual agreement with N.A.T.O. to renounce the use of military force and outlaw or limit arms ranging from neutron weapons to lethal chemicals. The leaders of the Communist alliance, who wound up a two-day summit conference under the leadership of the new Kremlin chief, Yuri Andropov, said that their countries now turned to the member States of the North Atlantic pact with a proposal to conlude an agreement to ■ renounce the use of military force and to preserve peaceful relations. Last months Mr Andropov repeated the Soviet’s renunciation of the first use of conventional forces. Yesterday’s communique said that Warsaw Pact States for a long time had been advocating disbanding of both alliances as a first step toward liquidating military organisations. They emphasised that they were ready to start negotiating with N.A.T.O. member States with the object of achieving corresponding agreement, beginning with mutual limitation of military activity. “The nucleus of this agreement could become a mutual commitment of member States of both alliances not to be the first to use nuclear or conventional weapons against each other,” said a statement published by the official news agency, C.T.K, as translated from Czech by the Associated Press. “This commitment would apply to the territory of all States which will become participants in the agreement and also to the military and civilian personnel, vessels, airplanes, spacecraft ■ and all other objects belonging to them wherever these may be.” The document said that the agreement would naturally not limit the inalienable right of the participants to individual or collective selfdefence in harmony , with article 51 of the United Nations Charter. Past Warsaw Pact declarations have usually added that the alliance, while seeking peace, is prepared to meet any threat of military force in kind. Such language was absent from yesterday’s statement. The documents said that nuclear war would lead inevitably to the destruction of entire nations, to tremendous devastation, and catastrophic consequences for civilisation

and life itself on Earth. It called for talks on reducing military spending, on limiting or doing away altogether with nuclear weapons tests, chemical weapons, neutron weapons, military bases in foreign countries and other military activity. The East bloc proposal came amid a concerted Soviet propaganda effort seeking to enlist United States and Western European peace groups in its campgian to block N.A.T.O.’s planned deployment of Americanmade cruise and Pershing II missiles in Western Europe. President Ronald Reagan said that the Warsaw Pact proposal for a mutual renunciation of force deserved

consideration by the N.A.T.O, allies.

But he added, cautiously, that the proposal was new and said: “This is something that would require consultation with all of our allies in N.A.T.0.” The White House had no immediate comment on the Pact’s proposal for a reduction in Soviet medium-range nuclear missiles in Europe as an alternative to an American call for removal of all such weapons, not just some of them. But Administration officials said that the proposal appeared to be similar to one made recently by Mr Andropov which the United States and other. Western countries had rejected. .Mr Andropov offered to reduce to 162 the number of Soviet SS2O medium-range missiles aimed at Western cities, the total in the independent British and French nuclear arsenals, if Mr Reagan dropped plans to deploy 572 American missiles in Western Europe this year. The United States has continued to press for the total removal of, medium-range missiles from Europe — the so-called “zero option” — saying that N.A.T.O. has none of these weapons to meet the threat from already-deployed Soviet missiles. France, in its first reaction, said that the best way of furthering peace was not to add new promises to the United Nations Charter but to respect existing ones. A spokesman for the External Relations Ministry said that France was waiting for more details of the offer but noted there was nothing new in the suggestions. “They have been presented plenty of times, under various forms,” he said.