Arms sales row may harm Geneva talks

Press, 5 December 1986, Page 10

Arms sales row may harm Geneva talks

NZPA-Reuter Washington The Kremlin may try to exploit President Ronald Reagan’s crisis over Iran in negotiations for a nuclear arms accord, says a senior United States defence official.

“There is always a danger that the Soviets will exploit foreign or domestic crises at the negotiating table as well as elsewhere,” said Frank Gaffney, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defence, yesterday. Mr Gaffney, who advises the Secretary of Defence, Caspar Weinberger, on arms control, was echoing fears expressed by other officials that the damage to Mr Reagan’s authority from the scandal over United States dealings with Iran could complicate efforts to reach a nuclear weapons accord.

. Diplomats say the Soviets may toughen their terms in the hope that a weak Mr Reagan will give more ground to achieve an accord in the final two years of his presidency. The Iran row, including allegations that arms payments were diverted to Nicaraguan contra rebels,

has intensified the pessimism that United States arms control experts felt after the collapse of the Reykjavik summit meeting in October. Mr Gaffney said Washington had not retreated from any of the positions Mr Reagan offered in Reykjavik. “We are still committed in everything that the President proposed,” he said. But he also said proposals in ridding the world of all nuclear weapons “are not on the cards.” The issue of whether Mr Reagan almost committed the United States to eliminating all nuclear weapons caused dispute with Moscow and alarm in western Europe.

The Soviets said Mr Reagan had accepted the principle, while the President insisted he had only agreed to eliminate ballistic missiles, leaving bombers and Cruise missiles.

Mr Gaffney denied that Washington’s goal of withdrawing all of its mediumrange missiles from Europe in return for a similar Soviet move had also caused concern among the allies.

The “zero-zero” solution under which Pershing-2 and Cruise weapons would be removed from the Continent along with Soviet SS-20s has been criticised because many Western officials see the weapons as a vital symbol of United States commitment to European nuclear defence.

Moscow has effectively frozen the plan, which would leave 100 warheads in Soviet Asia and the western United States, by insisting on curbing development of a space defence system known as S.D.I. or “star wars.” Mr Reagan refused to accept curbs.

Mr Gaffney said he believed Moscow would eventually move back to dealing with the "Euromissiles” as a separate issue, a view shared by N.A.T.O. officials.

Western officials say they see grounds for compromise on defining what “star wars” research would be permissible. Mr Gaffney said there had been no sign of this. “My sense is that the Soviets remain totally committed to nipping S.D.I. in the bud,” he said.