Conflict over arms deal

Press, 22 October 1986, Page 10

Conflict over arms deal

NZPA-Reuter Washington The United States Defence Secretary, Mr Caspar Weinberger, in an apparent split with other top Reagan Administration officials, said yesterday that he would oppose any Soviet limit on United States testing of a “star wars” defence system. Mr Weinberger also said he had no indication that Moscow was prepared to allow limited United States testing of “star wars” in an effort to salvage the aborted Iceland arms accord. “If we sign any agreement of that kind we would have no real way that we could ever be sure the Soviets weren’t cheating as they’ve done so many times on so many of their other agreements,” Mr Weinberger said. The Secretary of State, Mr George Shultz, and Mr Donald Regan, President Reagan’s Chief of Staff, both expressed interest yesterday in what they called suggestions from Moscow that it was willing to discuss further strategic defence initiative testing. Officials on both sides said tentative agreement

on deep nuclear missile cuts collapsed in Iceland last week when Mr Reagan rejected the insistence of the Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, on a testing freeze on the strategic defence initiative.

A senior State Department official said yesterday that the United States wanted an agreement to eliminate medium-range missiles from Europe to permit an increase in American short-range missiles to the Soviet level.