Shultz to Meet With Soviet Premier : Secretary, Ryzhkov to Cover Arms, Summit Plans in Stockholm

Secretary of State George P. Shultz said Friday that he will meet with Soviet Premier Nikolai I. Ryzhkov in Stockholm today and that they will discuss the stalled arms control negotiations in Geneva and plans for a summit conference.

The two officials will head their respective delegations to the funeral of assassinated Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme today. Although the meeting will not be a “negotiating session,” Shultz said, he intends to bring up the two issues and a “wide array of subjects.”

Shultz said it will be his first meeting with the new premier, a protege of Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev. The secretary went out of his way to present the Administration as eager to make progress in the Geneva talks, which recessed 10 days ago and are scheduled to resume May 8.

“We believe that deep and equitable deductions are very desirable from our standpoint, from the standpoint of our allies and, we believe, from the standpoint of the Soviet Union,” Shultz said at the State Department. “We’re ready to negotiate.”

The United States is “studying and working” on its arms proposals while awaiting the resumption of the talks, he said, but he pointed out that the Soviet Union has yet to respond to Washington’s proposals made last November in strategic arms reduction negotiations.

No Response to U.S. Offer

In the talks on intermediate-range missiles--those dealing with Pershing 2 and cruise missiles based in Western Europe and Soviet SS-20 missiles in Eastern Europe--Shultz said Moscow had made a counterproposal but had not responded to a subsequent U.S. offer.

“There’s a lot of potential action in Geneva,” the secretary said. “There’s a major dialogue between the United States and the Soviet Union now.”

In Moscow, meanwhile, Deputy Foreign Minister Vladimir G. Komplektov challenged the United States to match the Soviet moratorium on nuclear testing to comply with an appeal that had been made by Palme and five other world leaders to suspend all nuclear tests until the next U.S.-Soviet summit.

Several recent Soviet statements have hinted that lack of progress in the arms talks, or the United States’ order last week that the Soviets must trim the staffs of their three United Nations missions, may result in cancellation of plans for a meeting between Gorbachev and President Reagan in Washington. But Shultz dismissed this speculation, saying that he expects a meeting sometime by year’s end.

New Arms Negotiator

In a rare appearance at the State Department’s daily briefing, Shultz presented Ronald F. Lehman, who will replace former Sen. John G. Tower (R-Tex.) as one of the three U.S. arms control negotiators at Geneva. Tower was the U.S. representative on the talks dealing with strategic missiles. Lehman has served most recently as a National Security Council staff member and an adviser to the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency.

Shultz praised Tower for his services and said the new U.S. team “will continue our effort for major reductions, radical reductions in strategic nuclear arms and our efforts to achieve arms reductions that are fair and equitable.”