Euro missile debate takes centre stage

Press, 19 May 1984, Page 10

Euro missile debate takes centre stage

NZPA-AP Brussels Only days after a United States official had declared the issue “behind us,” the debate on how to complete N.A.T.O.’s arsenal of medium-range nuclear missiles in Europe has leaped back to centre stage. The issue dominated the two-day meeting in Brussels of 14 North Atlantic Treaty Organisation Defence Ministers.

At the session’s close, with Dutch authorities still wavering on whether to accept their share of N.A.T.O. nuclear missiles, the outgoing N.A.T.O. secretary-gen-eral declared that the missile issue threatened the unity of the alliance. Missiles were not the only

topic at the session. The Ministers jointly endorsed an American plan to use new technology in conventional weapons for the 19905, and agreed to increase N.A.T.O. spending on equipment shelters, airport runways and similar support facilities over the next six years. No cost figure for the programme was announced. The missile issue overshadowed the meeting. ® The Soviet Union said yesterday it would match the threat posed by the MX missile and other arms programmes approved by the United States Congress, and discounted prospects for a quick resumption of arms control talks.

In a commentary on the

compromise the House of Representatives approved on Wednesday on defence spending, an analyst, Alexander Malyshkin, said that reservations made by the House cannot seriously hinder the implementation of the strategic rearmament programme of the American Administration.

Mr Malyshkin, writing for the official news agency Novosti, said this meant there was no chance of resuming the abandoned talks on limiting strategic nuclear weapons and nuclear missiles in Europe. He said that as long as deployment of new N.A.T.O. medium-range nuclear weapons in Europe continues, resumption of arms talks is impossible.