Meeting agenda in Gorbachev’s hands

Press, 7 December 1988, Page 10

Meeting agenda in Gorbachev’s hands

By

IRWIN ARIEFF

of Reuter in Washington for NZPA

President Ronald Reagan and the President-elect, George Bush, say they are willing to discuss any new ideas the Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, might bring up at their meeting today, but will not Commit themselves. ihmc vpt-v in-. nrovement in United

While stating publicly that they do not expect any surprise initiatives, they say they will discuss whatever Mr Gorbachev raises after hints from Moscow that he might bring new ideas. But they insist they will not make any commitments or be drawn into on-the-spot negotiations. “We’ll consider whatever he has to say and certainly there will be talk of substance at the iheeting but...there will not be any commitments on my part in terms of specific arms control proposals or things of that nature," Mr Bush said yesterday. United States officials say the Soviets privately have given them no indication they are planning any bombshells for the super-Power talks set for

Governor’s Island in New York Harbour. “We don’t expect to be making any new proposals and we don’t expect any (from the Soviets) in the sense of requiring on-the-site response or any onlocation negotiating or anything like that,” said Mr Reagan’s spokesman, Marlin Fitzwater. United States concern over a possible last-min-ute surprise proposal from the Soviets was heightened by several statements over the weekend by Soviet officials. “President Gorbachev is not going to travel from (the United Nations) to Governor’s Island just for small talk,” the Soviet Foreign Ministry spokesman, Gennadi Gerasimov, said in a television interview on Sunday. Mr Gorbachev “will have in his pocket very

interesting iaeas, very in-, teresting initiatives,” said Nikolai Shishlin, a senior official of the Soviet Communist Party Central Committee in a separate broadcast interview. “We must consider Gorbachev’s visit to the United States as a Christmas gift to the American people and to mankind,” Mr Shishlin added. Both nations look to the meeting, the fifth and final of the Reagan presidency, as an opportunity for Mr Gorbachev to say farewell to Mr Reagan, who leaves office on January 20, and to start building a new relationship with Mr Bush. United States experts say Mr Gorbachev, beleaguered at home by ethnic unrest and opposition to his radical reforms, will at the very least want assurances that the im-

yiUVCIUCUI 111 vuuvu States-Soviet relations over the last three years will continue. Mr Gorbachev, whose .official reason for the New York visit is to address the United Nations General Assembly, is expected to reject a vision of endless struggle between capitalism and socialism in favour of new, joint East-West approaches to world problems in his speech to the world body. Soviet officials who briefed reporters in advance of the Soviet leader’s appearance said he would seek to reinvigorate the United Nations as an agent for political solutions. The officials suggested Mr Gorbachev might go beyond general themes and open major initiatives.