THE SUMMIT AT GENEVA : Gorbachev to Bring Offer, Soviets Hint

Forty-eight hours before Mikhail S. Gorbachev was to arrive for two days of summit talks with President Reagan, a Soviet official said Saturday that the Kremlin leader is “not coming to Geneva with empty hands.”

Moscow thus sounded a more conciliatory note after a series of harsh attacks on Reagan and U.S policies, but the officials--speaking at another in what has become a steady stream of Soviet press briefings here--declined to provide any details on any proposals Gorbachev may make.

The Soviet spokesmen promised that Gen. Nikolai Chervov, a spokesman for the Soviet Defense Ministry, would answer questions on the Kremlin’s arms control policies at a briefing for correspondents today.

Meantime, at another briefing, Soviet academic specialists said Saturday that casualties among Soviet troops in Afghanistan were increasing as anti-government rebels acquired missiles and other weapons from the United States and other countries.

“We are not very happy to have our forces in Afghanistan,” said Nikolai Glasov, a specialist at the Institute of World Economy and International Relations. Withdrawal of Soviet troops, he added, is “one of the (highest) priority aims” of the Soviet Union.

Kremlin officials rarely mention the total number of Soviet soldiers killed or wounded in Afghanistan, where Western officials estimate that they have stationed more than 100,000 troops since their invasion nearly six years ago.

However, before the Soviet forces are withdrawn, Glasov said, there must be a political settlement and a halt to “outside interference” by the United States and other countries supplying arms to the guerrillas, who call themselves moujahedeen.

Soviet officials rejected any analogy between their dispatch of troops to Afghanistan and the U.S. involvement in Vietnam, declaring that their forces are there on a temporary basis.

Reminded that Soviet troops in East Germany also were described as temporary and yet have been there for 40 years, Soviet journalist Henrik Borovik said “it won’t happen” that way in Afghanistan.

Although much of this is familiar Moscow rhetoric, the officials seemed to be signaling increased Soviet concern over combat losses in Afghanistan as well as greater interest in searching for a settlement. Negotiations have been going on for years under United Nations auspices without any results.

But stories about the fighting have begun appearing more frequently in Soviet newspapers, and there have been some televised reports from the battlefront that reflect more intensive warfare.

“I think the whole tragedy of Afghanistan . . . dictates multiplying political efforts to reach a political settlement,” said Glasov.

On another topic, Yevgeny Primakov, director of the same institute and a specialist on the Middle East, said the Soviet Union would consider diplomatic recognition of Israel if Israel would attend a peace conference with representatives of the Palestine Liberation Organization.

Israel, however, has insisted that Moscow must re-establish diplomatic ties before it will attend any peace conference including the Soviet Union, Primakov added, so the two sides are far from agreement.