Soviets to monitor U.S. nuclear tests on site

Press, 16 July 1986, Page 10

Soviets to monitor U.S. nuclear tests on site

NZPA-Reuter Moscow Soviet scientists would travel to the United States nuclear test-site in Nevada later this year to set up equipment for monitoring underground testing, Soviet and American scientists said yesterday. Yevgeny Velikhov, vicepresident of the Soviet Academy of Sciences, said the mission would be part of a private Joint United States-Soviet effort to demonstrate that verification of a comprehensive nuclear test ban treaty was possible. ' Thomas Cochran, the head of a private team of American scientists who began installing seismic monitoring equipment at a Soviet nuclear test-site last week, said he expect* the Soviet team to

be in Nevada by November.

They were addressing a new conference after a meeting between the Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, and an international panel of scientists who urged him to extend a Soviet freeze on nuclear testing beyond the deadline of August 6.

The International Forum of Scientists for a Nuclear Test Ban also called on the United States to declare a pause on nuclear testing. The Reagan Administration has refused to halt testing, partly on the grounds that a ban would be impossible to verify. But American scientists said a technological breakthrough had. meant that even very sipall ex-

plosions could be detected.

Dr Cochran said that Soviet scientists engaged in the joint project with the American team from the New York-based Natural Resources Defence Council would go to three stations around the Nevada test-site.

“Under the agreement we plan to operate stations in the Soviet Union and the United States for a period of one year,” he said. Whether to continue the experiment would be decided then.

Dr Cochran said American scientists were installing seismic monitoring equipment near the main Soviet test-site of Semipalatinsk, in the central

Asian republic of Kazakhstan.

Rotating two-strong teams of American scientists would remain at the test site permanently, he said.

Dr Velikhov said the Soviet authorities had agreed to allow Soviet scientists to co-operate with the Americans independently. He said the project was non-Govern-mental because Washington had not proposed joint action.

The American President, Mr Ronald Reagan, earlier this year invited Soviet scientists to witness an American test in Nevada. But Moscow, which has been pressing for an encLto all tests, did not se«l a team.