Soviets open new base for SS2O missile

Press, 19 February 1983, Page 9

Soviets open new base for SS2O missile

NZPA .Washington The Soviets have started operating a new Siberian firing base for their SS2O missile, increasing the force of the nuclear weapons in positions to hit targets over a wide area of Asia, said United States intelligence sources yesterday.

The new missile base, equipped with nine launchers. is the twelfth SS2O site identified so far in Siberia, according to the sources. Its opening brings to 108 the number of SS2Os reported within striking range of Japan. South Korea. China and most of the rest of Asia. It was detected at Barnaul, about 320 km south of Novosibirsk. SS2Os, each armed with three nuclear warheads which can be directed at separate targets, have a range of more than 5000 km. The Soviets began deploying the SS2O in 1977. According to the most recent American intelligence count,

they have more than 330 of these mobile missiles in firing bases.

About two-thirds of the SS2O force is said to be located west of the Ural Mountains and capable of blanketing targets in Western Europe. The United States is trying to negotiate an agreement with the Soviet Union to eliminate all Soviet inter-mediate-range missiles, principally the SS2O, in exchange for United States agreement to cancel deployment of ground-launched cruise missiles and Pershing II ballisticmissiles in Western Europe.

• Meanwhile, the Soviets have proposed a system of on-site inspections’ for a future treaty banning all nuclear testing. A Soviet Ambassador, Viktor Issraelyan, told the 40nation Committee on Disarmament in Geneva, that States signing the treaty could demand on-site inspections if they suspected viola-

tions of the ban. and complain to the United Nations Security Council if their requests were not granted. If the treaty was accepted each State would undertake to co-operate in carrying out any investigations which the Security Council may initiate. he told the United Nations-affiliated body, which has been discussing a total test ban since a 1963 treaty banned all but underground tests. Western diplomats said that the idea seemed linked to Moscow's agreement last week to allow the International Atomic Energy Agency to inspect its peaceful nuclear facilities, its first concession to the strict monitoring favoured by Western States.

But an American delegate. Louis Fields, who last week proposed regular on-site checks for a chemical weapons ban. said that the United States would have to study the plan for any new

elements. It seemed to stop short of guaranteed inspections.

• The Warsaw Pact has formally proposed that the Soviet Union and the United States begin pulling out troops and arms from central Europe this year without waiting for the conclusion of an over-all East-West agreement on force reduction. Valerian Mikhailov, head of the Soviet delegation at the 19-State talks in Vienna between the Communist alliance and - N.A.T.O. on force reduction, made the proposal at the 330th round of the talks.

A Warsaw Pact spokesman described the proposal as a fundamentally new and inherently simple approach.

Mr Mikhailov said that it was based on proposals adopted by Warsaw Pact leaders at a summit meeting in Prague last month, and was aimed at overcoming the nine-year deadlock in the Vienna talks.