Reagan to make new arms offer

Press, 23 September 1983, Page 6

Reagan to make new arms offer

NZPA-Reuter Washington

American arms negotiators in Geneva are preparing a new offer for Moscow in a bid to reach an accord before the deployment of new intermediate-range American missiles in Europe later this year. President Ronald Reagan said yesterday that the fresh instructions issued to the chief American negotiator, paul Nitze, represented a significant addition to eariier American proposals and “address a number of Soviet concerns.” But he gave no details of the new offer.

“The time has come for the Soviets to show the world that they’re serious about peace and good will,” Mr Reagan told a group of broadcasters and editors at the White House. He said that the new instructions had been the result of extensive consultations between the United States and its N.A.T.O. allies, and Japan.

The new offer was designed “to move the negotiations forward,” he said.

The North Atlantic Treaty Organisation has pledged to begin basing Pershing 2 and cruise missiles in Europe late this year unless Moscow agrees to dismantle its existing arsenal of triple-warhead SS2O weapons.

Ultimately the alliance intends to place 572 of the new rockets in Western Europe, but Mr Reagan said that he would limit. the number of new American weapons to match the total Soviet force of 243 SS2Os in Europe and 108 in Asia as part of an interim arms deal.

American officials said that proposals discussed with the N.A.T.O. allies called for an equal number of American and Soviet missiles in Europe alone, if Moscow agreed to freeze its forces in Asia. The United States would

maintain the right to match the Soviet Union’s Asian forces, but would not actually do so. Despite the new move White House officials said yesterday that there was no weakening of American or allied resolve to deploy a new generation of missiles if no accord was reached.

A White House spokesman, Larry Speakes, said that parity with Moscow would be achieved “through arms control if possible, through deployment if necessary.”

The concept of matching missile forces in Europe alone would be a move in the direction of an informal understanding reached last year by Mr Nitze and the Soviet negotiator, Yuli Kvitsinsky.

That accord later rejected in Washington and Moscow, would have provided for 75 missilelaunchers for each side in Europe and a freeze on Soviet SS2Os in Asia.