Little time left—Kohl

Press, 8 March 1984, Page 10

Little time left—Kohl

NZPA-Reuter Washington The West German Chancellor, Dr Helmut Kohl, says that he. believes President Ronald Reagan could convince Soviet leaders at an early summit meeting to renew efforts for peace and co-operation. But Dr Kohl said that there was little time left for Mr Reagan to conduct such a meeting with the new Soviet leader, Konstantin Chernenko, before the United States election campaign heated up. Dr Kohl told the National Press Club that Mr Chernenko had made it clear he was interested in dialogue, detente, and cooperation. “Further efforts are needed to convince the

Soviet Union that constructive co-operation with the West also ties in its own interest. "... President Reagan is a man of strong and impressive character. I am sure that at such a meeting he would succeed in convincing the Soviet leaders of the need to be ready for peace and co-operation,” Dr Kohl said. At a news conference earlier he said that time was short for such a summit meeting. “I think common sense would tell me that in the heat of an election campaign such a meeting would be improbable. And this would reduce the timeframe in which it could be held.” Dr Kohl suggested in his

speech later that a ReaganChernenko summit conference follow the lines of th'e Nixon-Brezhnev declaration of 1972, pledging peace efforts without spelling out details. Mr Reagan repeated after his meeting with Dr Kohl that a summit conference must hold promise of fruitful results. Mr Reagan and his aides have often said that a summit meeting could hurt peace prospects if it produced no substantive agreement. Asked at his news conference about Mr Chernenko’s call last week for Western deeds rather than words to renew the East-West dialogue, Dr Kohl said that present Western proposals on arms control were sufficient.