Soviets Warn U.S. Against Space Defense

Soviet Defense Minister Sergei L. Sokolov warned Sunday that U.S. pursuit of a space-based missile defense system could destroy hopes of an arms control agreement at Geneva.

Sokolov declared in an interview with Tass, the official news agency, that American development of space weapons would be matched by new Soviet offensive and defensive arms.

“The U.S. course of militarization of outer space will extremely negatively influence the military-political situation in the world and complicate, if not make impossible, solution of the problem of reduction of nuclear armaments,” Sokolov said.

“Our aim is an end to the arms race, full destruction of nuclear weapons everywhere,” the defense chief insisted. “We want the United States to understand the Soviet stand at the Geneva negotiations and answer with reciprocity.”

Sokolov acknowledged that Soviet scientists are conducting military space research but denied that it involves the development of space weapons. “This work is not aimed at creating strike space weaponry but is linked with perfection of space early warning, reconnaissance, communication and navigation systems,” he said.

However, he said the Soviets will be forced to take countermeasures if the United States continues President Reagan’s so-called “Star Wars” research program on a space-based anti-missile system.

Message to Washington

“The so-called Strategic Defense Initiative of President Reagan is called ‘defensive’ only for cover-up purposes,” he said, “but actually it is aimed at the development of a new class of weapons--strike space systems.”

Sokolov, a 73-year-old career soldier, was named a candidate (non-voting) member of the ruling Politburo recently to recognize the military’s role under the Soviet Union’s leader, Mikhail S. Gorbachev.

While Sokolov’s statements summed up the Soviet Union’s previously known position at the Geneva talks, their publication at this time was interpreted as a message to Washington that the Kremlin is not going to make major changes in its negotiating stance.

‘Constructive Dialogue’

Both Washington and Moscow have said that little was accomplished during the first round of Geneva talks, which began March 12 and recessed April 23. A second round is scheduled to begin May 30 after Secretary of State George P. Shultz and Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei A. Gromyko meet in Vienna on May 14.

In the meantime, Gorbachev told a meeting of World War II veterans their victory showed that no one could overpower the Soviet Union and that this remains true today.

Although some “influential forces in the West” are seeking military superiority, he said, the Soviet Union does not believe war to be inevitable. “We will further use every opportunity for a constructive dialogue with the West to improve the international situation,” he said.

In his interview with Tass, Sokolov rejected the American view that the use of spy satellites by both superpowers means that the use of space for military purposes already has started.

“Neither the Soviet Union nor the United States has weapons in space at this time,” he said. “Space militarization, endangering mankind, will begin when strike systems designed to hit objects in space or from space are placed there.”

Sokolov also rejected American charges that Moscow is not observing its own unilaterally declared, seven-month moratorium on deployment of medium-range missiles targeted on Western Europe. He termed the allegations “malicious disinformation.”