NATO wants more arms cuts

Press, 3 December 1987, Page 10

NATO wants more arms cuts

NZPA-Reuter Brussels With a super-Power treaty scrapping mediumrange nuclear missiles only days away, the United States and its NATO allies have indicated that they will step up pressure on Moscow to reduce its conventional forces.

The United States Defence Secretary, Frank Carlucci, told reporters on Tuesday that Washington hoped to win the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation’s approval this month for a new American proposal for Warsaw Pact reductions in tanks and other weapons. “I think we are hoping to get our proposal

cleared through the allies by the end of the year," Mr Carlucci said.

He declined to give any details of the plan but suggested it could be ready to go to the Soviet Union early next year.

Mr Carlucci would not confirm a published report in the United States that Washington planned to demand a 50 per cent cut in Eastern-bloc conventional forces, saying, “I don’t know of any proposal that would involve 50 per cent cuts.” The perceived imbalance between NATO’s conventional forces and those of the Warsaw Pact has taken on greater importance for the alliance

as the signing of a superpower accord that would eliminate United States medium-range nuclear missiles based in Western Europe nears.

The Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty which will eliminate United States and Soviet-based nuclear rockets with a range of 500-5500 km is to be signed in Washington by President Ronald Reagan and the Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, on December 8. Ministers from 14 NATO countries will end a two-day meeting of the Defence Planning Committee on Wednesday with a communique that will express

strong backing for the INF treaty and hopes for its speedy ratification, diplomats said.

The West German Defence Minister, Manfred Woerner, told reporters in a separate briefing on Tuesday that Moscow would have to make deep cuts in conventional forces to satisfy the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation.

The British Defence Secretary, George Younger, said it had now become "a major preoccupation of all the alliance members to get its act together” on pressing Moscow to reduce conventional forces and eliminate chemical weapons worldwide.