Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev refused Friday to set a date for a summit meeting in Washington until President Reagan restricts his ”Star Wars”
program of space-based missile defenses.
The unexpected rebuff, coming amid growing optimism that Gorbachev and Reagan would meet this fall to sign a treaty banning intermediate-range nuclear missiles, was delivered in a four-hour Kremlin negotiating session with Secretary of State George Shultz.
Frustrated White House officials reacted with evident irritation, accusing Gorbachev of raising a ”false issue” and questioning his real motives.
Ending two days of talks here, Shultz said the treaty to ban
intermediate-range nuclear forces was ”virtually there,” with remaining details to be resolved, mainly in the area of verification.
But the anticipated deal to convene a third Reagan-Gorbachev summit foundered when the Soviet leader held out for concessions limiting the President`s cherished Strategic Defense Initiative, or ”Star Wars.”
Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze said later that the USSR is ready to sign the treaty on intermediate-range missiles at a summit if agreement can be reached on ”key provisions” cutting long-range weapons and strengthening the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty.
”If we get the key provisions, then there will be no problem for a summit and the signing of a treaty on medium- and shorter-range missiles,”
Shevardnadze said.
”The major obstacle is the attitude of the United States to the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty,” Shevardnadze said.
The two sides are arguing over what types of research, development and deployment are allowed under the ABM treaty, and over the length of time the superpowers must obey its provisions.
The outcome of the Moscow talks presented diplomats with a perplexing question: Even if negotiators in Geneva are now able to put finishing touches on the 100-page draft treaty banning intermediate-range weapons, will there be a summit at which to get it signed?
Shultz, briefing reporters before flying to Brussels, said he did not expect further talks with his Soviet counterpart ”anytime soon.” However, he said, the White House is awaiting a promised letter to Reagan from Gorbachev defining the Soviet viewpoint.
”We`ll be checking the postman,” Shultz said.
Shevardnadze, whose news conference followed Shultz`s, pre-empted the Gorbachev letter by outlining a new series of Kremlin arms-control proposals. Shevardnadze said Gorbachev has proposed setting specific sublimits for the superpower arsenals of long-range, or strategic, missiles.
The Kremlin leader advocated limiting warheads on intercontinental land-based missiles to between 3,000 and 3,300, and the number of warheads on submarine-launched missiles to between 1,800 and 2,000.
He then suggested limiting air-launched cruise missiles to between 800 and 900.
Negotiators for the U.S. and USSR have already reached rough agreement on cutting their strategic forces in half, or to about 6,000 warheads each, but had set no conditions.
Tass, the official Soviet news agency, later reported details of a new Gorbachev proposal for a moratorium on production, testing and deployment of intermediate-range weapons, to start Nov. 1.
Tass said Gorbachev made the offer in order to ”secure what has been achieved on the issue of banning medium- and shorter-range missiles” if a treaty is not immediately signed.
Gorbachev also vowed to have a one-year moratorium on work at a radar station near Krasnoyarsk, in Siberia-work that the Reagan administration charges is a violation of the ABM treaty.
In exchange, the Soviet leader said he expected the U.S. to halt work at an American radar installation in Scotland.
The Kremlin`s decision once again to tie progress in other areas of arms control to agreements on curbing missile-defense research caught most foreign observers by surprise.
It was a Gorbachev speech last Feb. 28 decoupling the talks on intermediate-range missiles from negotiations on space-based and defensive missiles that sparked renewed optimism that a treaty could be reached on the intermediate-range group. It would be the first-ever agreement eliminating an entire class of nuclear weapons.
Near euphoria followed on Sept. 18, when Shultz and Shevardnadze, meeting in Washington, announced an ”agreement in principle” banning intermediate-range missiles.
It was then a commonly held assumption that Shultz`s follow-up trip to Moscow on Thursday and Friday would simply be a time for polishing the treaty on intermediate-range missiles and choosing a date for another Reagan-Gorbachev summit.
Shevardnadze said the treaty could be completed in as little as three weeks. ”All the major problems have now been solved,” he added. ”But the conditions-where and when-that remains to be solved.”
Shultz said that during his Kremlin meeting with Gorbachev the Soviet leader made it clear ”that he is not prepared under present circumstances to set a date to go to Washington.”
However, Shultz said he made it equally clear to Gorbachev that Reagan is not going to dismantle his ”Star Wars” research program just to guarantee a summit.
”The United States will not give up our effort to learn to defend ourselves against ballistic missiles,” Shultz said. ”The President is very determined on this point.”
Shultz said he and Shevardnadze, during their five negotiating sessions over two days, also discussed human rights and regional issues, including the Iran-Iraq war, the Middle East and Afghanistan.
Shultz and Shevardnadze said their talks had been positive despite the failure to finalize the treaty on intermediate-range missiles or reach agreement on a summit date.
”There were some results, some successes,” Shevardnadze said.
”American and Soviet relations are changing.”
Shultz and the members of his entourage, who flew from Moscow to Brussels Friday on their way home, seemed to concur with that assessment-although they were clearly puzzled over the last-minute setback in the summit plans.
White House officials, on the other hand, expressed frustration and anger over Gorbachev`s refusal to set a summit date.
”The issue seems to be whether or not Gorbachev wants to come to the United States for a summit,” spokesman Marlin Fitzwater told reporters in Washington. ”He has made SDI (Strategic Defense Initiative) a roadblock. Certainly he knows the President is not going to make SDI a bargaining chip. We have to wonder whether there is some other fear that raises this false issue. Maybe he just doesn`t, for some reason, want to come to the United States. It certainly raises a lot of hard questions on his intentions.”
