Warsaw Pact Nations Expected to Renew Alliance at Summit

The seven nations of the Warsaw Pact announced Thursday that they will hold a summit meeting here at the end of this month, apparently to sign a formal agreement renewing the 30-year-old military alliance that binds most of Eastern Europe to the Soviet Union.

Simultaneous announcements in Warsaw, Moscow and other Soviet Bloc capitals confirmed unofficial reports of the coming summit. The announcements said it will involve heads of state and Communist Party leaders but gave no specific date or reason for the meeting.

Western diplomats, however, said the summit is likely to be held April 26-27 and that its purpose is clearly to renew the Warsaw Pact, which expires May 14.

No Major Changes Seen

No major changes are expected in the structure of the alliance or in its military policies, which are set by the Soviet Union. Diplomatic observers said the summit itself is largely a formality but that it will be used as the occasion for a major appeal to the West to accept the Soviet Union’s numerous existing proposals for arms control.

“There may be some changes in the wording (of the treaty) to reflect the fact that the East Europeans are marginally more equal to Moscow than they were 30 years ago, but not much more than that,” one Western diplomat said.

The summit will be held in closed session, with a joint communique on arms control and international relations to be issued at the end. The new Soviet leader, Mikhail S. Gorbachev, is also expected to use the opportunity to conduct detailed talks with East European leaders on more pressing issues of economic relations.

Albania Among the Missing

In addition to the Soviet Union, members of the Warsaw Pact are Poland, East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria. Only tiny and isolated Albania has succeeded in withdrawing from the Warsaw Pact, in 1968, to protest the Soviet-led invasion of Czechoslovakia.