Soviet President labels U.S. policy ‘suicidal’

Press, 30 September 1983, Page 6

Soviet President labels U.S. policy ‘suicidal’

NZPA-Reuter Moscow

The Soviet leader, Yuri Andropov, has scorned President Ronald Reagan’s latest arms proposals in his strongest attack on American policy and intentions throughout the world since coming to office nearly a year ago. The Soviet President’s remarks came in the form of a statement issued by the official news agency Tass, designed, according to Mr Andropov, to make the Soviet leadership’s assessment of Washington’s international policy known to the Soviet people. Mr Reagan’s latest modifications to the American stance at the Geneva arms talks, announced to the United Nations last Monday, were swept aside by Mr Andropov as a “so-called new move,” which he said altered nothing in the basic American position. Mr Andropov did not refer to the details of the American proposals. Ameri-, can pronouncements were described as hypocritical and full of obscenities.

Mr Andropov called American policy “selfish”, “short-sighted” and “suicidal.”

Western diplomats in Moscow described the tone of the statement as “unexpectedly savage and blunt.”

In the first direct comment by Mr Andropov on the Soviet destruction of a South Korean airliner on September 1, he repeated the argument launched by the military that the plane was sent by Washington on a spy mission as a “cynical provocation.” A West European diplomat said: “It looks as if everything that has been said against Moscow since the airliner incident has hit home and Reagan’s attacks on the morality of the whole system were the last straw,

provoking this tirade in reply.”

Mr Andropov reiterated warnings that deployment of new American missiles in Western Europe would take the world closer to the brink of nuclear disaster.

He said that the Soviet Union would take countersteps, but as in past pronouncements by the Soviet leadership, stopped short of suggesting just what measures might be taken, beyond saying that Moscow could and would defend itself and its allies.

American professions of flexibility in the Geneva arms talks were dismissed as “prattle.”

“We are being asked to discuss how to turn the existing balance of mediumrange nuclear weapons in the European arena to the balance of the N.A.T.O. bloc,” said Mr Andropov.

Diplomats said it was worth noting that the statement was addressed also to the Soviet people, some of whom have admitted to being shocked by the shooting down of the Korean airliner.

Mr Andropov’s statement was read twice in full on television yesterday, and was due to be printed in main newspapers. “Of course, malicious at-

tacks on the Soviet Union produce here a natural feeling of indignation, but our nerves are strong. We do not base our policy on emotions,” said Mr Andropov. A Western European envoy said that the tone of his statement, however, suggested the contrary. Echoing Soviet press criticism in recent weeks of the British Prime Minister, Mrs Margaret Thatcher and the West German Chancellor, Dr Helmut Kohl, Mr Andropov said that there were people who were “blinded by anti-commun-ism.”

But he said that those who had encroached upon the integrity of the Soviet State and its system had ended up on the “garbage heap of history.” The United States said yesterday that the world would be disappointed by Mr Andropov’s denunciation of Mr Reagan’s new offer. A statement issued by the State Department said that the world would also be deeply disappointed that Mr Andropov personally associated himself with what it called a pathetic charge that the Soviet destruction of the Korean airliner was provoked by the United States.

However, American arms control officials commented that Mr Andropov had not rejected Mr Reagan’s proposal in detail, and said that the Soviet response appeared to hold out some prospect that Moscow would eventually be willing to explore specific elements of the new American ideas. East-West talks on reducing conventional military forces in central Europe, resume today in Vienna after a 10-week summer recess.

The negotiations have been stalled by disputes over the exact strengths of the respective armies and ways to monitor an accord.