Invitation to Moscow

Press, 31 January 1983, Page 16

Invitation to Moscow

Mr Yuri Andropov, the Soviet leader, has invited Mr Perez de Cuellar, the United Nations Secretary-General, to visit Moscow to discuss, among other subjects, Afghanistan. The visit raises all kinds of speculation, but does not lead easily to the conclusion that the Soviet Union is ready to leave Afghanistan. The United Nations has long interested itself in Afghanistan and last February Mr Diego Cordovez was appointed a special United Nations envoy on Afghanistan. Mr Cordovez is continuing that mission and is at present in Pakistan. He has already been to Iran, which also borders Afghanistan, and will go to Kabul from Pakistan. Whatever he discovers should assist Mr Perfez de Cuellar when he visits Moscow in March.

The suggestion that the Soviet Union is becoming more interested in a solution to the problem of Afghanistan is based on some flimsy evidence. When President Zia of Pakistan visited Moscow for the funeral of President Brezhnev, Mr Andropov was observed to spend more time with him than he spent with President Babrak Karmal, who runs the puppet Government installed in Kabul by the Soviet Union. The other evidence is more of a theory: that Mr Andropov inherited rather than initiated the Afghanistan problem and would like to get rid of it. Probably this is true; but it does not mean that he would simply withdraw the 100,000 or more troops that the Soviet Union has in Afghanistan. The problem would not go away so easily. The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan three years ago has been viewed by some in the West as a typical piece of Soviet repression, and by some in the Islamic and Third World as the suppression of an Islamic country that has the ill fortune to share a border, with the Soviet Union. Although both views have elements of the

truth, the Soviet action cannot be viewed with thoroughness without considering some of the Soviet perspectives. The sequence was that the dictatorship of President Daoud was overthrown by a Communist, Mohammad Taraki, who, in turn, was overthrown by another Communist, Hafizullah Amin. Amin killed fellow Marxists among others and this generally chaotic situation caused the Soviet Union to intervene. It had Amin killed, and installed Babrak Karmal. This is not a situation from which the Soviet Union can withdraw without losing face, or losing control in Afghanistan. If the Soviet Union simply withdrew, it might encourage some ethnic minorities in the Soviet Union, or some Eastern European States, to try to throw off the yoke of Moscow.

Yet the Soviet Union has good reason for improving its international relations, which have suffered badly since the Afghanistan intrusion. The United States will probably require some concession on Afghanistan before real progress is made on the question of nuclear missiles. One of the results within Afghanistan of Soviet withdrawal would be that the feuding groups which are now fighting the Afghanistan Government troops and the Soviet troops would fight each other for control of the country. The Government set up by Moscow has no obvious successor. Could the United Nations make some arrangement that would be acceptable to Moscow and also acceptable to the rest of the world? The Soviet Union has probably lost confidence in its ability to win the hearts and minds of the Afghanis. The United Nations Secretary-General may at least find ears prepared to listen when he goes to Moscow. He will need a definite plan to offer.