N-arms accord stalls over ‘star wars’

Press, 14 October 1986, Page 6

N-arms accord stalls over ‘star wars’

NZPA-Reuter Reykjavik The United States President, Mr Ronald Reagan, and the Soviet leader, Mr Mikhail Gorbachev, blamed each other for the collapse of the Iceland summit meeting yesterday, after it folded with no agreement on arms control or a date for their next encounter.

Trading recriminations after the talks, both men said Mr Reagan’s “star wars” programme had been the stumbling block to an arms accord which would have included ridding Europe of United States and Soviet mediumrange missiles.

But each accused the other of adopting an unreasonable stand on the U.S. space-based Strategic Defence Initiative (5.D.1.) and both leaders charged that the other side had torpedoed historic proposals for deep cuts in nuclear arsenals.

In spite of the gloomy end to the meeting in Reykjavik, both sides said their talks had made valuable progress towards sweeping new arms limitation measures, and pledged that specialist negotiators would pick up where the summit left off.

Mr Reagan, speaking to United States servicemen at Iceland’s Keflavik N.A.T.O. base before flying home, said he had proposed a 10-year delay in deploying a space defence in return for scrapping all strategic missiles over a 10-year period. "Though we put on the table the most far-reach-ing arms control proposal in history, the General Secretary (Mr Gorbachev) rejected it,” Mr Reagan said.

But Mr Gorbachev said Mr Reagan had made pro-

posals on “star wars” that “only a madman could accept.” “We were very close to historical agreements that would have moved the world firmly away from the threat of nuclear war,” Mr Gorbachev told a news conference in Reykjavik.

“But the United States came to this summit with empty hands, with empty pockets,” he added.

Behind the rhetoric, it was clear that Mr Gorbachev had insisted on stringent restrictions on the development of S.D.I. as a condition for any other agreements, and Mr Reagan had refused to budge on his insistence on continuing the programme.

While Mr Reagan sees the space defence project as the path to making the world safe from nuclear arms, the Soviets regard it as a devious attempt to build a missile shield enabling the United States to launch a devastating atomic strike.

Mr Reagan told the servicemen that he could not accept restrictions on S.D.I. It would have “killed our defence” and destroyed his right and

that of future presidents to build a missile shield for the people of the free world, he said.

“This we could not and will not do,” he added, to cheers from the servicemen.

The Iceland meeting, proposed by Mr Gorbachev, was staged mainly to hammer out conditions for his proposed full-scale summit meeting in Washington. This was originally to take place before the end of this year. In an initial briefing on the Iceland talks, the American Secretary of State, Mr George Shultz, looking tired and drawn, admitted that prospects for the trip had now receded into the distance. Mr Gorbachev said he did not rule out going to Washington at some stage, but gave no indication when.

The two leaders agreed at their first meeting in Geneva last year that after Mr Gorbachev’s visit to the United States, Mr Reagan would go to Moscow in 1987. The failure of the Iceland talks raised the prospect of a new freeze in super-Power relations and appeared likely to be seen as a serious setback by

allies of both countries, said Mr Shultz. The lost chance of a “breath-tak-ing” accord on mediumrange missiles was bound to be particularly disappointing to the West Europeans.

Both Mr Shultz and Mr Gorbachev said the two sides had reached an outline agreement to cut these warheads from over 1000 to just 100 on each side, and with deployment limited to Soviet Asia and the United States. The accord would have meant a withdrawal of the U.S. cruise and Pershing missiles that have spawned powerful protest movements in many West European countries.

Mr Shultz said the two sides had also sketched the outline of an accord on long-range nuclear arms that would have meant a 50 per cent cut in arsenals in the run-up to their eventual elimination. Mr Gorbachev said that during the two days of talks both sides had dealt with most problems of verification of the arms accords, and had even worked out the basis for talks on ridding Europe of short-range nuclear missiles.

Both sides pledged that the positions worked out in Reykjavik would now be included in the Geneva arms control negotiations. Although the two leaders emerged from the talks empty-handed, each tried to put a brave face on the outcome.

“This meeting has been promising. Let us not despair. This meeting has brought us to the point where accords are possible,” said Mr Gorbachev.

Mr Reagan, said: “We made great strides in resolving most of our differences and we are going to continue the effort.”