Pre-Summit Talks Slated Next Month

Secretary of State George P. Shultz will meet Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard A. Shevardnadze Sept. 19-20 in Washington to discuss preparations for the second superpower summit, the State Department announced today.

“We expect that Secretary Shultz and Foreign Minister Shevardnadze will review progress achieved and areas addressed by President Reagan and General Secretary Gorbachev in their November, 1985, Geneva meeting and discuss what additional preparations may be needed for a summit meeting between the two leaders later this year,” State Department spokesman Charles E. Redman told reporters.

Redman said no dates have been set for the second summit between Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev.

Redman announced the meeting in a statement read to reporters at the start of the State Department’s daily news briefing. It is customary for a similar announcement to be made by the Soviet government in Moscow.

Series of Meetings

Officials said that the meeting was agreed to in a series of meetings at the State Department with Deputy Soviet Foreign Minister Alexander A. Bessmertnykh.

The fact that it was announced is a signal that preparations for the second Reagan-Gorbachev summit, delayed for months, are back on track.

Reagan and Gorbachev, at their first summit Nov. 19-20 in Geneva last year, agreed to two further meetings, one in the United States this year and another in the Soviet Union in 1987. But the Soviets have not agreed to a date for this year’s meeting, which U.S. officials say can be held sometime after the November congressional elections.

The Soviets, protesting the April 15 U.S. bombing of Libya, canceled a Shultz-Shevardnadze meeting that had been scheduled for May and until last week had refused to reschedule the session.

U.N. Session Sept. 22

Shultz and Shevardnadze will meet before both travel to New York to attend the opening of the annual U.N. General Assembly session, which will begin Sept. 22.

Redman did not say whether Shevardnadze will meet Reagan when he is in Washington, but he met with the President during a similar visit last fall.

Reagan said last week after the Bessmertnykh meetings that he had agreed to a Soviet suggestion “of a work plan, involving a series of preparatory meetings that would lead to a productive summit later this year.”

Gorbachev has said he is not interested in a second summit if it is merely another get-acquainted session and wants substantive progress on arms control. Reagan recently sent Gorbachev a letter making a counterproposal in response to Gorbachev’s arms control proposal of June and the Soviet leader has said it merits serious study.