U.S. plan magnifies checks — Tass

Press, 21 April 1984, Page 10

U.S. plan magnifies checks — Tass

NZPA-Reuter Moscow Washington’s new plan for a comprehensive ban on chemical weapons exaggerated the role of verification and played down the need to scrap such arms, the official Soviet news agency, Tass, said yesterday. Tass said that “at long last” the American VicePresident, Mr George Bush,

had detailed Washington’s draft treaty at the 40-nation Geneva disarmament conference on Thursday. Moscow’s chief negotiator, Viktor Issraelyan, said that the Soviet Union would study the proposal. Mr Bush said that the American had plan introduced entirely new concepts aimed at overcoming the thorny question of verification, a stumbling block

in chemical weapons talks. But Tass yesterday said that the draft did not contain even a hint of change and, “is again trying, as they say, to put the cart before the horse by exaggerating the role of verification and belittling the significance of practical measures for scrapping chemical weapons.” It said that Washington

knew its verification proposal — which calls for quick visits to military or Government-owned or controlled sites by nominated international inspectors — was obviously unacceptable to the Soviet Union. It would mean that all Soviet chemical works, which belong to the State, would be liable to inspection. Most of the American

chemical industry was privately owned and would not be subject to inspection, Tass said. Moscow had already agreed to controls over the scrapping of chemical weapons, the agency said, but the American plan to open all Government military works was “a very strange American interpretation of a verifiable agreement.”