U.S. plans arms cuts in Europe —Bush

Press, 6 December 1989, Page 11

U.S. plans arms cuts in Europe —Bush

NZPA-Reuter Brussels The United States President, George Bush, told his N.A.T.O. allies yesterday that he was willing to consider deeper cuts in United States conventional and nuclear forces than presently proposed. He assured them that the United States would remain a power in Europe. After briefing the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation on his week-end summit with the Soviet President, Mikhail Gorbachev, Mr Bush said the “peaceful revolution” in Eastern Europe offered N.A.T.O. the chance of a greater political role to promote democracy and Western values. He praised the Soviet leader for allowing popular pressure for reform to oust old-style socialism in five Warsaw Pact countries. Mr Bush insisted that N.A.T.O. must reach a conventional forces agreement next year with the Warsaw Pact on the basis of existing proposals, involving a cut of about 10 per cent in the 300,000 United States troops in Europe. He also made clear that the new East-West relationship meant that reductions were unlikely to stop there. “I am prepared to look with an open mind at ways in which we can together achieve lower levels of conventional and nuclear forces in Europe as part of a negotiated agreement,” he told the meeting. His remarks, billed as “the future shape of the new Europe and the new Atlanticism,” surprised the British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. Describing the proposals as “quite profound,” she said: "It was so full of meat that we will have to consider it very carefully before we reply to it.”