U.S., Soviets May Reach Some Accords Before Geneva Summit

After years of differences and months of negotiations, the United States and the Soviet Union are moving toward final agreement on a number of issues, a senior Western diplomat said Friday.

The Soviet-American summit conference scheduled for late November in Geneva is not regarded as a deadline, the diplomat said, but added that some agreements may be reached in time for announcement there.

“Things are humming along,” the diplomat said. He talked with reporters on the condition that he not be identified by name or nationality.

The United States and the Soviet Union, together with Japan, have already announced preliminary agreement on an air safety agreement covering the North Pacific region. Once concluded, this would pave the way for restoration of landing rights for the Soviet airline Aeroflot in the United States. These rights were suspended after Soviet fighters shot down a Korean airliner in September, 1983, killing all 269 on board.

In return for restoring Aeroflot’s landing rights in the United States, a U.S.-flag airline may be given similar rights in Moscow. Pan American World Airways once had such rights but suspended its Moscow flights on grounds that they were not profitable.

“There are some details to be worked out,” the diplomat said of the proposed civil aviation agreement.

The Soviet Union will establish a consulate in New York City and the United States will open one in Kiev if a consular agreement is amended as planned.

But on this score “some issues are not resolved,” the diplomat said. Another source said the Soviet Union has already designated a consul-general for New York on the assumption that the agreement will be signed soon.

Formal agreement on an exchange of scientists and scholars, which has been under negotiation for more than a year, also may be ready in November for the signatures of President Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev.

“There is essential agreement on most issues,” another Western diplomat said about a scientific, cultural and educational exchange pact.

Afghanistan Intervention

President Jimmy Carter suspended negotiations on the proposed consulates and the cultural exchange in response to the Soviet Union’s military intervention in Afghanistan in December, 1979.

A senior diplomat acknowledged that these issues are less important than the arms control talks in Geneva, where the Soviet Union and the United States both reported little or no progress.

“Whether we are edging toward a compromise (at Geneva), I don’t know,” he said. “My own sense is that we have a long way to go.”