Reagan Calls on Soviets to End Role in 5 Trouble Spots : Shifts Focus of Summit From Arms Reduction

President Reagan, calling for a “fresh start” with the Soviet Union, proposed a joint peace process today to get communist troops out of five Third World trouble spots where he said the Soviet Bloc is propping up leftist regimes and internal conflicts threaten to spread.

The five nations he pinpointed--Ethiopia, Afghanistan, Angola, Cambodia and Nicaragua--are all Marxist, all Soviet-backed.

Launching a public relations counteroffensive from the podium of the U.N. General Assembly on its 40th anniversary, Reagan shifted his focus for next month’s summit meeting with Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev from nuclear arms reduction to local flash points in the Third World.

And he said that before he goes to Geneva for the Nov. 19-20 summit he will present new proposals for ending what he called the unjustified division of Europe between East and West.

No Sheveradnadze Reaction

Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard A. Shevardnadze, who drew worldwide attention two months ago with his proposal from the same lectern for “star peace” instead of “Star Wars,” sat impassively in the packed but silent chamber as Reagan spent half an hour presenting what he called the plain and simple but deep and abiding differences between the United States and Soviet Union.

In an initiative that one senior Administration official acknowledged had little chance for success in its present form, Reagan proposed a three-point plan for ending civil strife in five countries where he said the Soviets or their allies are trying to impose their communist ideology by force and subversion.

He outlined a plan for peace talks between the warring parties within Afghanistan, Angola, Cambodia, Ethiopia and Nicaragua while warning that U.S. support “for struggling democratic resistance forces must not and shall not cease” until negotiations “result in definitive progress.”

In each of those countries, Reagan said, Soviet-backed regimes “are at war with their own people.”

If those talks make progress, Reagan said, the two superpowers “should sit down together” to search for ways to support the peace process.

‘Democratic Reconciliation’

For its part, Reagan said, the United States would “welcome each country back into the world economy” and “respond generously to their democratic reconciliation with their own people.”

Administration officials, discussing the proposal on condition they not be identified, said U.S. intelligence indicates that the Soviets may be receptive to some proposal that would get them out of the expensive and bloody struggles in the Third World, where their military presence and support only heighten tensions with the United States.

But while they denied that the plan was just a public relations ploy, one senior aide said he could not envision the Soviets openly accepting even elements of the plan unless the United States shows that it is willing to give something in return.

On the question of arms control, Reagan said the Soviets’ proposal for deep cuts in nuclear arsenals is being given serious study and may contain “seeds which we should nurture.”

But he yielded no ground in the face of Soviet insistence that he abandon his project to find a space-based defense against nuclear missiles.

‘Prison of Mutual Terror’

The United States, he said, “seeks to escape the prison of mutual terror by research and testing that could, in time, enable us to neutralize the threat” of offensive weapons.

In defense of his program, popularly dubbed “Star Wars,” Reagan quoted former Soviet Premier Alexei Kosygin as saying 18 years ago that an anti-missile system might be “more expensive than an offensive system, but it is designed not to kill people but to preserve human lives.”

Although that quote is similar to Reagan’s call for a system that would “kill weapons, not people,” Kosygin said it five years before the two superpowers signed the ABM treaty that outlawed most systems designed to defend against nuclear attack.

In outlining U.S. differences with the Soviets, Reagan said, “We Americans do not accept that any government has the right to command and order the lives of its people, that any nation has a historic right to use force to export its ideology.”

“We would welcome enthusiastically a true competition of ideas,” he said. “But we cannot accommodate ourselves to the use of force and subversion to consolidate and expand the reach of totalitarianism.”

‘Prosecuting War’

Reagan said there are 118,000 Soviet troops “prosecuting war” against the Afghan people, 140,000 Soviet-backed Vietnamese soldiers waging a war of occupation in Cambodia, and 1,700 Soviet advisers and 2,500 Cuban combat troops in Ethiopia.

In Angola, he said, 2,000 Soviet military advisers are planning combat operations alongside 35,000 Cuban troops, and in Nicaragua about 8,000 Soviet-bloc “personnel” are present.

He said that his proposal to reduce tensions would give the Soviet Union “an extraordinary opportunity” to contribute to regional peace while promoting a dialogue with the United States.

After the speech, Reagan met with Prime Minister-designate Bettino Craxi of Italy. The meeting was arranged to soothe over differences following the U.S.-Italian clash over the Craxi government’s handling of the Achille Lauro hijacking. The two leaders today agreed to let bygones be bygones, according to a senior Administration official.

“The general theme of Prime Minister Craxi . . . was that U.S.-Italian friendship and the alliance have never been called into question and that while there may have been differences, at no time did it throw the relationship into a shade,” said the official, who demanded anonymity.

The President and Shevardnadze were scheduled to meet later in the day for a 30-minute discussion on plans for the Geneva summit.