Space arms ban can be done—Soviet negotiator

Press, 14 March 1985, Page 6

Space arms ban can be done — Soviet negotiator

NZPA-AP Geneva The chief Soviet negotiator, on the first day of the new Geneva arms talks, called for an end to the arms race in space.

“It can be done, it can be done,” said Victor Karpov as he hinted he would propose restraints on testing anti-satellite systems or using outer space for attacks on Earth targets. Mr Karpov has said his negotiating stance carries the approval of the new Soviet Communist Party leader, Mikhail Gorbachev. The President of the United States, Mr Ronald Reagan, has called for research into the use of space to defend against Soviet missiles. The Soviets agreed to reopen the negotiations on offensive weapons they had abandoned in late 1983 only when the United States agreed to put space-based defences on the agenda. “The more we do to prevent the arms race in space, the better it is,” Mr Karpov said before sitting down with the three American negotiators, Max Kampelman, John Tower, and Maynard Glitman, for a twohour and 45-minute session.

They agreed to meet again today. Mr Kampelman, in a brief statement, called the first session, which was held in private, “serious and businesslike.” Mr Gorbachev made a special point of criticising

space weapons during a visit to Britain in December.

“It is especially important to avert the transfer of the arms race to outer space. If it is not done, then it would be unreal to hope to stop the nuclear arms race,” he said.

He urged a freeze on the development of new space weapons after he was nominated to succeed Konstantin Chernenko as Party general secretary. The Reagan Administration is defending its strategic defence initiative as a research programme consistent with existing treaties with the Soviet Union.

Mr Karpov said the Soviets had called in the United Nations last year for a treaty banning the use of space for military purposes. Asked if it would be proposed in these talks, Mr Karpov said with a smile: “Let’s see what will be negotiated.” The treaty, which the Soviets also put before the United Nations in 1981, opposes the use of orbiting or stationary space objects “to destroy any targets on the Earth, in the atmosphere or outer space.”

Other restrictions would be placed on manned space craft.

The United States, in contrast to the Soviets, seeks as its primary goal deep reductions in long and inter-mediate-range offensive

nuclear missiles. The talks are set up for separate consideration of the missiles and spacebased defence systems. Mr Karpov, by taking full charge of the first meeting, showed that the Soviets intended to link the discussions. Mr Kampelman took along Messrs Tower and Glitman to show that the United States side does not want progress in one area blocked by disagreement in another. “Our objective is to reach an agreement,” he told Mr Karpov as he entered the Soviet mission to begin the session. Mr Karpov also made it clear he had received instructions approved by Mr Gorbachev three days before Mr Chernenko died. Mr Karpov told reporters that Mr Gorbachev “presided over the meeting of the Politburo that approved the (negotiating) instructions last Thursday.” As he left Geneva for Moscow the United States Vice-President, Mr George Bush, hinted that he would try to set up a meeting between Mr Reagan and the new Soviet leader. Mr Bush said that he would deliver a letter from Mr Reagan. Asked if the President was ready for a summit meeting, Mr Bush said, “We’ll talk about that after agreement is reached with the Soviets on what we are going to disclose.”