Soviets dash U.S. chemical ban hopes

Press, 26 July 1984, Page 8

Soviets dash U.S. chemical ban hopes

NZPA-Reuter Geneva The Soviet Union described a United States draft convention banning chemical weapons yesterday as a setback to negotiations, saying that it “created a number of major and hopeless tangles which had not existed before.” The draft, formally tabled by Vice-President George Bush at the 40-nation Geneva disarmament conference in April, has been the subject of several explanatory statements in recent weeks by the chief United States delegate, Louis Fields. Today Moscow’s chief negotiator, Viktor Issraelyan, told the conference yesterday that the United States scheme, which emphasises verification, “increases the differences between the parties at the negotiations and is a setback on a number of issues, especially on verification.” Mr Fields’ clarifications had "done nothing to change our over-all assessment of the document,” Mr Issraelyan said. The Soviet news agency, Tass, attacked the draft as absurd and unacceptable as soon as it was tabled but United States negotiators said that they were not deterred by that initial public reaction and hoped Mos-

cow would negotiate seriously on the issue. These hopes were apparently dashed by yesterday’s Soviet statement. “When the United States came out with its draft convention in April it became obvious that the draft did not add any positive contribution to the work already done in Geneva and that it created a number of major and hopeless tangles which had not existed before,” Mr Issraelyan said. A chemical weapons treaty might be “even further away now than it was, say, six months or a year ago,” he said. Mr Fields recently blamed Moscow for lack of progress on the treaty, saying that United States verification suggestions had been rejected but no coun-ter-proposals had been made. “Progress simply cannot be made when members of the conference choose not to participate actively in this crucial area of'discussion,” he said. United States sources said they believed a motive for Soviet obfuscation over the issue might be the fear that any progress on the basis of the much-publicised United States draft could help President Ronald Reagan in his election campaign.