U.S., Nicaragua Hold New Talks

The United States and Nicaragua met for their first formal talks in several months Tuesday but achieved no progress, officials said.

U.S. special envoy Harry W. Shlaudeman and Nicaraguan Ambassador Carlos Tunnermann met for half an hour at the State Department and “basically repeated the existing positions of the two governments,” a U.S. official said.

Tunnermann asked for a resumption of the regular meetings between the two nations that were held in 1984, but Shlaudeman, a presidential envoy to Central America, turned down the idea, another official said.

Shlaudeman also told Tunnermann that the United States wants Nicaragua to open negotiations with the U.S.-financed rebels, known as contras, who are fighting to overthrow the leftist Sandinista government, the official said.

Tunnermann declined to comment on the meeting. In the past, Nicaragua consistently has rejected talks with the contras.

The discussion was the first such contact since last summer. The United States broke off a series of bilateral talks in Manzanillo, Mexico, last January, charging that Nicaragua was avoiding negotiations with its Central American neighbors.

Tuesday’s session was arranged after President Reagan turned down a request from Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega for a meeting last week.

“I would expect to see more meetings,” the official said. “We aren’t saying that we aren’t going to talk to them.”