Soviet Envoy Says U.S. End to ‘Star Wars’ Is Key to Progress in Geneva Arms Talks

Chief Soviet arms negotiator Viktor P. Karpov returned Wednesday for a new round of talks on limiting nuclear weapons and said the United States must scrap its “Star Wars” program entirely before any progress can be made.

“The U.S. ‘Star Wars’ program sharply reduces chances of reaching agreement on disarmament issues,” Karpov said in an arrival statement at Geneva airport. “Star Wars,” formally known as the Strategic Defense Initiative, is a research project aimed at developing a space-based system to defend the United States against a missile attack.

“Renunciation of the development, including research, testing and deployment of space arms would open the way to radical reductions in nuclear arms,” Karpov said. “That is why nuclear and space arms must be considered and resolved in their organic interrelationship. We would like to hope that the U.S. side has made the necessary adjustments in its position and will be prepared to work out practical solutions.”

Six-Week Recess

The Karpov statement offers little hope for anything but continuing deadlock in the talks, which resume today after a six-week recess. But the chief U.S. negotiator, Max M. Kampelman, arriving on a special flight from Washington after a briefing session with President Reagan, said, “We continue to have the flexibility that we need to move forward.

“I really don’t like to use words like optimistic or pessimistic,” Kampelman said. “I don’t know that they add very much to the reality of a negotiation. The first round developed as we had expected it would develop, I suppose. We were perhaps somewhat disappointed at the slow pace, and I hope that we can enliven and quicken that pace during the second round.”

The Karpov statement was a reiteration of various utterances from Moscow in recent days from Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev, who has dismissed the first round of talks, held from March 12 to April 23 in Geneva, as useless. Gorbachev has also been telling visitors that the Soviet Union will refuse even to talk about reducing nuclear weapons until the United States abandons the “Star Wars” program.

More comments on the matter came Wednesday from Moscow, where Italian Prime Minister Bettino Craxi and former West German Chancellor Willy Brandt, who is chairman of his country’s Social Democratic Party, both held news conferences to report on their talks with Gorbachev.

Craxi, after a talk in the Kremlin lasting 3 hours and 45 minutes, said he could “understand legitimate Soviet worries” about the “Star Wars” program, but he blamed lack of progress in Geneva on “a misunderstanding” between the superpowers.

‘Answer Right Away’

“It will be five to 10 years before the results of the research are known, but the Soviets want the answer right away,” Craxi said. “The U.S. and NATO are agreed that the negotiations (on medium- and long-range missiles) in Geneva should be separate and not specifically linked to the strategic defense program. They cannot paralyze the whole thing by saying either/or.

“The United States says it is ready to discuss the whole matter, including military usage, but the Soviets are unwilling to accept that. I think it might be a misunderstanding. In good faith we can reach an agreement.”

On the other hand, Brandt said: “I cannot see how it will be possible to move from the dead center and how it will be possible to remove the feeling of serious concern unless the interconnection of strategic and space weapons is accepted in Geneva.”

Plenary Meeting

Today’s opening session of the new round of talks will be a plenary meeting of the heads of all three negotiating teams under Kampelman and Karpov. On the American side, Kampelman is responsible for the talks on outer space weapons, while John Tower, a former U.S. senator, heads the negotiating team dealing with strategic nuclear weapons and Maynard W. Glitman, a career diplomat, is conducting the talks on intermediate-range nuclear forces.

This round of talks is due to continue until July 16.