U.S., Soviets Hold Talks on Iran-Iraq War, Shultz Says

The United States and the Soviet Union, in preliminary talks for the next superpower summit, have begun discussions of possible cooperative action to hasten the end of the Iran-Iraq war, according to Secretary of State George P. Shultz.

“There is a little common ground in analysis on the Iran-Iraq war,” Shultz said. “We’d both like to see it end. There may be some things that can be done that would help. . . . It represents searching around for things that might be (done) on the positive side.”

He declined to provide details.

Shultz spoke to reporters aboard his U.S. Air Force transport jet on the flight to California from Bogota, Colombia, where he had attended the inaugural of President Virgilio Barco Vargas. The secretary arrived here early Friday to spend the weekend at his home on the Stanford University campus before meetings in San Francisco on Monday with Australian Foreign Minister Bill Hayden.

Shultz said a U.S. delegation led by veteran arms negotiator Paul H. Nitze was sent to Moscow this week to discuss ways of speeding up the next formal round of arms control talks which begin in Geneva on Sept. 18. He said the group also would try to focus the Washington-Moscow dialogue in advance of Shultz’ meetings in Washington on Sept. 19-20 with Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard A. Shevardnadze.

The purpose of the flurry of U.S.-Soviet meetings, after months of inaction, is to prepare for a summit meeting between President Reagan and Soviet Communist Party leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev, which the United States, at least, wants to hold before the end of this year.

Summit Must be Well-Prepared

“Both sides feel that a summit meeting ought to be well prepared and to the extent that it is possible to have significant results that are associated with it,” Shultz said. “That’s what we’ve been wanting to do and that is what this represents.”

Nevertheless, a shadow of skepticism about whether there will be a Reagan-Gorbachev meeting crept into Shultz’ comments. He said the Nitze group’s meeting in Moscow would be to prepare “for the meeting that we will have with Shevardnadze and then potentially, if there is a meeting between the President and the General Secretary (Gorbachev) it should be well prepared.”

Shultz did not elaborate on his use of the word “if.” Previously, U.S. officials have said Washington assumes there will be a summit this year despite a Soviet reluctance to set a date.

Shultz said previous rounds of U.S.-Soviet arms control talks have started slowly, with each side jockeying for position for a time before “the pace picks up and . . . things begin to move a bit sometimes.”

The purpose of sending the Nitze group to Moscow, he said is to try to “get that end of the round atmosphere more in the beginning of the round.”

Third World Issues

In addition to arms control, the United States and the Soviet Union hold periodic talks on ways to dampen conflicts in the Third World. These talks usually end in disagreement because most regional disputes involve either U.S.-backed insurgents trying to topple Soviet-backed governments or Communist-inspired rebellions against U.S.-supported governments.

Shultz agreed that there has not been much movement in those talks, but he said the tone was somewhat less negative this year than it had been last year. He said the improvement in atmosphere resulted from the talks about the Iran-Iraq war.