Soviet Offers Trade: A-Site Inspection for End to Blasts

The Soviet Union is prepared to allow American inspectors at its nuclear test sites and to be “open to any form of verification” if the Reagan Administration agrees to ban further underground blasts, a senior Soviet official said today.

At an embassy news conference, Deputy Ambassador Oleg M. Sokolov reaffirmed Moscow’s determination to have a productive superpower summit despite slow progress on the issues that President Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev would discuss.

“There is no question about our wanting a summit and working for a productive summit,” he said.

At the State Department, meanwhile, spokesman Charles E. Redman said talks held here this week between U.S. and Soviet delegations “produced no surprises but they were useful as an occasion for each of us to make our positions clear, to dispel misconceptions and reduce misunderstandings in a sober and businesslike atmosphere.”

Sokolov challenged the Administration’s assertion that verification procedures are inadequate to police a ban on nuclear testing.

“The problem does not exist,” he said.

With support from a Soviet military expert, Col. Vitaly Kotuzhansky, the Soviet diplomat said both countries can detect tests of the lowest level through seismic measurements.

Moreover, Sokolov said, once the United States agrees to join the Soviets in a test ban, on-site inspection will be permitted.

“We don’t see a problem of inspection as an obstacle to a cessation of nuclear testing,” he said.

Redman said “verification problems cannot be dismissed with the kind of arguments the Soviets were putting forward.”

Kotuzhansky reiterated Gorbachev’s recent assertion that the United States had conducted three underground weapons tests besides the 15 that were announced since the Soviet leader imposed a moratorium last summer on Soviet tests.