Leaders may be only a handshake apart

Press, 11 October 1986, Page 10

Leaders may be only a handshake apart

NZPA-Reuter Reykjavik Hopes are high in Iceland on the eve of the crucial meeting of the American President, Mr Ronald Reagan, and the Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev. American officials said the super-Power leaders could be only a handshake away from an outline deal on curbing their medium-range nuclear missile arsenals in Europe and Asia. And as Iceland prepared to welcome Mr Gorbachev, after Mr Reagan’s arrival yesterday, Soviet officials were striking a generally conciliatory tone. They said Mr Gorbachev was prepared to discuss human rights and Afghanistan — prime

Reagan concerns — as well as arms control, which tops the Soviet agenda for the talks this week-end.

At the same time, the son of a long-standing Soviet Jewish "refusenik,” Vladimir Slepak, won a surprise audience with a senior Kremlin official and said afterwards he was “very hopeful” that his father would be given permission to emigrate. As Mr Reagan flew from sunny Washington to a damp and chilly Iceland, administration officials said they expected Messrs Reagan and Gorbachev to shake hands on the framework for an agreement on in-termediate-range nuclear forces. They said details of a full agreement would be left to their respective

negotiators to work out. An official emphasised that there were no guarantees of a final agreement until it was signed. They compared the process with selling a house.

No such deal was closed until the principles signed it, the official said.

When Mr Reagan left Washington for his s(£ hour flight to the edge of the Arctic Circle he said he travelled in hope for peace. But no-one could overlook the deep differences that existed between the United States and Soviet Union and success this week-end was not guaranteed, he said. The meeting has been officially billed as a preparation for a summit

meeting in the United States. Mr Reagan said that meeting remained only a possibility. Kremlin officials said that Mr Gorbachev was ready to meet Mr Reagan’s concern — reinforced by his conservative supporters back home — that this meeting was not restricted to arms control issues.

This underlined Moscow’s apparently conciliatory mood by avoiding all criticism of Mr Reagan and refusing to be drawn into commenting in detail on American policies. They also announced that Moscow would allow a Soviet Jewish dissident, Inessa Fleurova, to emigrate to the West, a decision that appeared aimed at further sweetening the Iceland atmosphere.