Reagan not ready yet

Press, 7 August 1985, Page 11

Reagan not ready yet

NZPA-Reuter Washington President Reagan says the United States will join the Soviet Union in permamentlv banning nuclear testing but only after Washington could match Moscow militarily. A White House national security spokesman. Edward Djerejian. said after Mr Reagan’s comments that, “the President was not proposing any new initiative.” The Soviet leader, Mr Mikhail Gorbachev, last week announced a unilateral fivemonth nuclear test moratorium which began yesterday - the fortieth anniversary of the atom bomb attack on Hiroshima.

Mr Reagan refused to join in a test freeze, saying the United States lagged behind Moscow in perfecting sophisticated weapons systems. In turn, he offered to allow a Soviet team to witness a United States underground nuclear test in Nevada. He has renewed that invitation, including ail future underground testing, but again rejected the fivemonth moratorium on the grounds that “the Soviet Union is ahead of us in the development and modernisation of nuclear weapons.” He said after Washington caught up, “if they want to make that a permanent moratorium ... we are will-

ing to do that.” Asked if he would be willing to impose a total ban on testing at the end of this year, Mr Reagan replied, “Well, I don’t know whether we’d be able to complete ours by that time or not. When we’ve completed ours and they’re not doing any more — yes, that would be fine.” Mr Djerejian said this represented no change in United States policy. Both Mr Reagan and Mr Djerejian said the most important focus should not be on testing moratoriums as proposed by the Soviet Union but on working towards progress in Geneva talks on reducing nuclear and space weapons.