Warsaw Pact Rejects U.S. Missile Plan : Bars Linking Talks on Short-Range and Mid-Range Weapons

MOSCOW — Foreign ministers of the Warsaw Pact nations have rejected Washington’s proposals to negotiate restraints on shorter-range Soviet missiles as part of a ban on U.S. and Soviet medium-range weapons, a senior Soviet official said Wednesday.

Deputy Foreign Minister Vadim P. Loginov told a press briefing that his country and its East Bloc allies unanimously agree that the removal of short-range nuclear weapons from Europe must be kept separate from a medium-range missile deal.

But the Soviet Union, Loginov said, pledges to start talks on elimination of its short-range missiles as soon as Moscow and Washington reach agreement on removal of both sides’ medium-range weapons.

Open Way for Total Ban

“Such an agreement would open the way for the complete elimination of nuclear weapons from Europe,” he added.

In Washington, the U.S. government denounced the Warsaw Pact declaration as “a major step backward.” State Department spokesman Charles Redman said the new position adds a new obstacle to negotiations on intermediate-range nuclear forces at a time when success appeared to be in sight.

The Warsaw Pact delegates made explicit a demand hinted at by Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev in a speech last month that negotiations for removal of short-range missiles must be kept separate from talks about medium-range weapons. The United States contends that the short-range missile issue must be addressed in the same treaty, although some of the details can be left for later negotiations.

U.S. and Soviet negotiators are close to an agreement to eliminate from Europe all intermediate-range weapons--technically known as long-range intermediate nuclear forces--and to limit each side to 100 warheads on those weapons outside Europe. That class includes weapons with a range of between 1,000 and 3,000 miles.

Shultz to Visit Moscow

Secretary of State George P. Shultz is scheduled to visit Moscow early next month for talks with Gorbachev and Foreign Minister Eduard A. Shevardnadze. Before the latest statement on the Soviet position, Shultz said there was a good chance of reaching agreement on a medium-range missile pact.

However, Redman said Washington has insisted all along that Moscow must agree to restraints on short-range nuclear weapons, those with ranges between 300 and 1,000 miles, as part of the medium-range pact. If Moscow refuses to modify its latest position, that could torpedo the expected agreement on medium-range arms. The Soviet Union has a monopoly on weapons in the 300- to 1,000-mile class. Tactical battlefield weapons, those with less than a 300-mile range, are not included in the current talks.

Although Gorbachev hinted last month that the Soviets might insist that the two classes of weapons be handled separately, Redman said Gorbachev agreed to the linkage during his summit meeting with Reagan in Iceland last fall. Moreover, he said, Soviet negotiators for six years have agreed in principle that restraints on short-range and intermediate-range forces should be linked.

“This is a step back from a longstanding position that the Soviets had agreed to since 1981,” Redman said.

Soviet Freeze Rejected

The Soviets earlier proposed a freeze on short-range weapons. This was unacceptable to the United States because there are no American weapons in that class.

Redman summed up the U.S. position on linkage of the talks: “(Restraint on short-range weapons) has to be an integral part of an initial agreement; that the constraints must ensure U.S. rights to global equality at the Soviet or lower levels. . . . But what’s happening now is that they appear to be saying that all of these questions of constraint have to be put off until a subsequent negotiation or a follow-on negotiation.

“That makes absolutely no sense at all from a security point of view, because if you don’t put at least some constraints on these shorter-range systems, then the longer-range agreement can be circumvented,” Redman said.

In a reversal of policy, Gorbachev recently proposed separate negotiations on the so-called Euromissiles instead of a package deal including restrictions on American space defense that he proposed at the Iceland summit.

Since then, however, Western officials have expressed concern over the Soviet monopoly in short-range missiles. Redman has said the United States is considering plans to shorten the range of its intermediate-range Pershing 2 missiles in West Germany.

Soviet Missile Deployment

U.S. medium-range cruise missiles and the Pershings were deployed in Western Europe after the Soviet Union stationed hundreds of medium-range SS-20 missiles within range of European capitals.

In response to that move, however, the Soviet Union deployed short-range missiles in the Western part of its territory and deployed similar weapons in East Germany and Czechoslovakia.

The Warsaw Pact delegates backed the Soviet proposal to withdraw the missiles from East Germany and Czechoslovakia if an agreement is reached on abolishing medium-range missiles from Europe.

“As far as other theater (short-range) missiles are concerned, the Soviet Union is prepared immediately to begin talks with a view to fully reducing and eliminating them,” the foreign ministers said in a statement winding up their two-day session here.

The Warsaw Pact session, first of its kind in nearly six months, clarified East Bloc views on the eve of the Shultz visit and another by British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.

Thatcher to Visit Moscow

Thatcher, who is scheduled to arrive Saturday for a five-day visit to the Soviet Union, has consulted on arms control issues with West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl and French President Francois Mitterrand this week.

U.S. officials have said that an agreement on medium-range missiles between Shultz and Shevardnadze next month could lead to a summit meeting in the United States between Gorbachev and President Reagan.

On other issues, the Warsaw Pact meeting called for an international convention to ban chemical weapons, backed abolition of nuclear weapons tests and renewed opposition to the U.S. Strategic Defense Initiative, the proposed space-based missile defense system popularly known as “Star Wars.”

The representatives of Bulgaria, Hungary, East Germany, Poland, Romania and Czechoslovakia joined with Shevardnadze in the conference, which was devoted largely to questions of European security.

Soviet spokesman Loginov said other East Bloc members welcomed Soviet political and economic reforms initiated by Gorbachev but insisted that there were no requirements for other countries to follow suit.

William J. Eaton reported from Moscow and Norman Kempster from Washington.