Afghanistan Will Become ‘Festering Thorn,’ Soviets Warned

Afghanistan “will remain a thorn in the Soviets’ side” that will “grow and fester and spread” unless Soviet negotiators agree to withdraw their troops in talks resuming Monday in Geneva, Deputy Secretary of State John C. Whitehead warned Friday.

In a speech to the Washington World Affairs Council, Whitehead confirmed that the United States has informed U.N. Secretary General Javier Perez de Cuellar of its willingness to play “an appropriate guarantor’s role” if the negotiations are successful. The Soviet Union and Pakistan have been conducting indirect talks under U.N. auspices that have produced virtual agreements on mutual nonintervention, voluntary return of the 3.5 million Afghan refugees now living in Pakistan and a formula for international guarantees.

Still to be concluded is a fourth document specifying the withdrawal of Soviet troops who have occupied Afghanistan for six years, which Whitehead called the “heart of the Afghan problem.”

He added: “The way is thus open to tackle, once and for all, the prompt and final withdrawal of the Soviet army from Afghanistan. If, as General Secretary (Mikhail S.) Gorbachev indicated in Geneva, the Soviet Union supports the U.N. process, and if, as the Soviet Union continues to claim, it is sincerely interested in achieving a political settlement, then this next round of talks will provide them a forum to demonstrate their sincerity.”

If Moscow derails the negotiations with digressions or excessive demands, Whitehead said, “the blame for lack of progress will be theirs alone.”