Soviet Spokesman Denies Violations of SALT II Pact

A Soviet Foreign Ministry spokesman today denied allegations that Moscow has violated terms of the 1979 SALT II treaty on limiting some types of nuclear weapons.

On Tuesday, Defense Secretary Caspar W. Weinberger claimed that the Soviets are deploying new mobile SS-25 intercontinental nuclear missiles in an “unquestionable violation of Soviet assurances given to us under the SALT II accord” that permits development of only one new type of ICBM. He said the Soviets have already developed the SS-X-24 (Story, Page 15.)

But Soviet spokesman Vladimir Lomeiko said, “No deployment has taken place that could be considered a breach of SALT II.” The Soviets, according to Western accounts, do not consider the SS-25s as new rockets but as modifications of older ones.

Lomeiko stopped short of saying that no deployments at all had taken place but stressed that “not one missile has been deployed which can disturb SALT II.”

The 1979 Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty II puts limits on most long-range nuclear weapons systems.

Lomeiko, who spoke at the end of a two-day Warsaw Pact summit meeting outside Sofia, accused Weinberger of “trying to detract from our proposals” for securing peace.

At the conclusion of their two-day meeting today, the Warsaw Pact leaders adopted a document “on the elimination of nuclear threat” with a call to the West for joint arms reductions.

The seven-nation communist alliance is “decisively in favor of curbing the arms race, in favor of the effecting of a positive change in international relations,” said Ivan Ganev, deputy foreign minister of this host country.

“The world has come closer to the line beyond which events may simply get out of control,” he told reporters.

The document, as outlined by Ganev, indicated a basic restatement of some Soviet negotiating positions with the West. Among its proposals were an end to the testing, production and stationing of offensive space weapons, a moratorium on nuclear weapons testing, a ban on development of new intermediate-range nuclear missiles and a ban on chemical weapons.