Sandinistas Offer to Resume Talks With U.S.

The government of Nicaragua, countering a Reagan Administration proposal that it negotiate with rightist rebels, offered instead Tuesday to reopen peace talks with the United States.

Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega, in a communique published in the Sandinista newspaper Barricada, assailed Reagan’s offer as an “ultimatum.” But he added that Nicaragua “has always been disposed to speak with the government of the United States.”

Calling for a truce and talks, Reagan also urged approval by Congress of $14 million for the rebels. But he pledged to spend the new money only for humanitarian purposes so long as there are good-faith negotiations.

Ortega proposed that a series of talks between the two countries that took place last year in Manzanillo, Mexico, be renewed. Washington broke off the Manzanillo negotiations in January after charging that the Sandinistas were using them for propaganda purposes.

The Tuesday communique followed a weekend meeting between Ortega and Cuban President Fidel Castro in Havana.

Ortega’s offer echoes a long-held Sandinista theme that the way to end the war with the rebels, who are known widely as contras, is to negotiate directly with the United States. Until last summer, the Reagan Administration funded the guerrillas through the CIA, but Congress declined to renew the funding.

Alejandro Benbana, head of the North America department of the Foreign Ministry, declared, “We prefer to meet with the true leaders of the contras--the U.S.--in Manzanillo.”

The Manzanillo talks were supposed to complement efforts of Central American nations to reach a peace treaty through the Contadora initiative--talks sponsored by Mexico, Colombia, Panama and Venezuela.