Soviets Balk at U.S. Plan to Include Rights as Separate Issue at Summit

The Soviet Union is balking at U.S. plans to include human rights as a separate topic on the agenda of the Geneva summit meeting of President Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev, a senior American official said Thursday.

The official talked to reporters aboard Secretary of State George P. Shultz’s Air Force transport on the return flight from Helsinki, where he met Wednesday with newly appointed Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard A. Shevardnadze.

Shultz said Wednesday that he and Shevardnadze established a framework for the November summit meeting during a three-hour session and called the meeting “a good first step” toward the summit. He said both sides reviewed the topics they expect to cover during the Reagan-Gorbachev meeting Nov. 19-21.

U.S. Summit Aims

Other U.S. officials said after the Shultz-Shevardnadze session that the United States wants the summit to include the stalled Geneva arms control talks, regional issues such as the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the festering Arab-Israeli dispute and bilateral issues such as civil aviation, cultural exchanges and human rights.

But the official aboard Shultz’s plane said there was no agreement on including human rights as a separate item.

Soviet officials said Wednesday that Moscow wants to discuss arms control, regional issues and bilateral issues. The Soviets never like to talk about human rights but a U.S. official said that Washington could raise the issue under the heading of bilateral matters if Moscow objected to a separate category.

Shultz and Shevardnadze are scheduled to discuss summit preparations again next month, when the Soviet foreign minister plans to be in New York for the opening of the U.N. General Assembly. U.S. officials say Shultz hopes to reach a final agreement on the agenda at that time by resolving the human rights issue.

Shevardnadze also is expected to go to Washington on that trip for his first meeting with Reagan.

Shultz left Helsinki about noon Thursday, skipping the final day of the conference here marking the 10th anniversary of the signing of the Helsinki accords on security, cooperation and human rights in Europe. The meeting ended without any communique issued by representatives of 35 countries, a reflection of the deep differences between the Soviet Bloc and the West.

A ‘Step Forward’

Shevardnadze, who stayed through the final session, said the Helsinki meeting nevertheless represented a step toward detente.

During his talks with other foreign ministers, “we could feel the serious concern about the existing tension in the world, and at the same time the willingness to work in the direction of detente,” he said in a departure statement.

In an address to the concluding session of the Helsinki meeting, Finnish Foreign Minister Pavo Vayrynen said the 1975 accords presented a vision for the future of Europe in which cooperation would replace confrontation.

“But despite all arms control efforts so far, Europe remains the continent with the deadliest concentration of weapons, both nuclear and conventional,” he said.

Canadian External Affairs Minister Joe Clark said there has been slippage in many areas and very slow results in negotiations on security issues. At the same time, he said, the Helsinki process has degenerated into “a dialogue of the deaf” in which Western and Soviet Bloc officials make their own arguments without any true debate.

More Relaxed Manner

The new Soviet foreign minister won high marks from Western diplomats here for his quick grasp of policy issues and a more relaxed manner than his unsmiling predecessor, Andrei A. Gromyko, who had held the post for 28 years.

“We can do business with him,” several Western European officials told reporters after their talks with the new Soviet minister, who took office only a month ago.

The Soviet delegation also scored a public relations coup, putting on stage several top officials at two news conferences to expound Moscow’s viewpoint. By contrast, American diplomats insisted on speaking without attribution except for a brief appearance by Shultz at the conclusion of his private meeting with Shevardnadze.

French External Relations Minister Roland Dumas said he saw signs of a more flexible Soviet approach on European disarmament questions. Other diplomats, however, said there was no change in the Kremlin line.

Of the Europeans who met with Shevardnadze, Dumas was the most optimistic about prospects for a change, however slight, in Soviet policy. He said the Soviets may be prepared to revise their position at the stalemated Stockholm conference on European security and at talks on chemical weapons at Geneva.

“I felt certain signs of openness on European security issues,” Dumas said at a briefing.

Dumas said he felt there might be progress at the Stockholm talks on confidence-building measures, such as advance notification on troop maneuvers by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and its eastern counterpart, the Warsaw Pact.

The Stockholm talks have been deadlocked because of Soviet insistence on a non-aggression pact, an idea resisted by the West. The United States has favored more specific measures to lower tensions in Europe.

‘Useful and Relaxed’

British Foreign Secretary Geoffrey Howe said his session with Shevardnadze was “useful and relaxed,” but he remained more cautious than Dumas about prospects for changes in the Kremlin line.

“We are now moving in the right direction but the world is not in sight of any dramatic transformations,” Howe said.

The U.S. official aboard Shultz’s plane said the secretary had been asked at a breakfast meeting of NATO members whether he detected any shifts in foreign policy under Gorbachev and Shevardnadze. Shultz replied, the official said, that his impression was one of “continuity” in Soviet policy.

Shevardnadze, 57, distinguished by thinning tufts of white hair, spoke Russian with a noticeable Georgian accent. A fairly tall man, with rounded shoulders, he would never win a prize for public speaking, most of his listeners agreed.

Clark, the Canadian external affairs minister, said Shevardnadze was impressive in private discussions, however, and even recalled offhand a 1971 incident in Canada to illustrate a point.

A senior American official said Shevardnadze is “a very capable man. He’s got a firm command of the issues. He will be a good, strong interlocutor.”

Shevardnadze, who made his reputation as a prosecutor fighting corruption in Georgia, clearly has been busy with briefing books during his first month in office. His conversations reflected a detailed knowledge of complex foreign policy matters, diplomats said.