Both Sides Optimistic at Summit : Gorbachev Urges ‘Action,’ Reagan Moves on Treaties

President Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev made final preparations Friday for their weekend summit, with Gorbachev urging “serious and decisive action” on arms control and Reagan readying an offer to limit nuclear weapons testing.

On the eve of their second summit, presidential spokesman Larry Speakes said that Reagan was ready to seek Senate ratification of two long-pending treaties limiting nuclear tests if the Soviets agree on verification procedures.

Speakes revealed Reagan’s plan not long after the President cleared a potentially hazardous superpower negotiating hurdle with successful long-distance negotiations with Congress on several arms control disputes.

Gorbachev and Reagan did not cross paths Friday, but each spoke optimistically of prospects for reaching some understandings here.

Reagan’s Response

Gorbachev, on his arrival, said he was ready to join the United States in a quest to “remove the threat of nuclear war.” Reagan, asked by reporters about the Soviet leader’s remarks, replied, “I hope their hopes are realized.”

The Soviets, who are pressing for the United States to join them in their unilateral moratorium on all nuclear tests, have never formally responded to Reagan’s proposals on the verification problem.

Speakes said Friday that Reagan would tell Gorbachev that he would submit longstanding nuclear test-limiting treaties for Senate ratification as “the first order of business” when the new Congress convenes in January.

But a White House statement said if the Soviets don’t approve acceptable, new verification technology, Reagan will reserve the right to block the treaties.

Hopes for Shared View

“We are prepared to seek solutions to the most critical problems that worry people and, most of all, those solutions that would remove the threat of nuclear war,” Gorbachev said.

The Communist Party chief added that he will go to his meeting with Reagan with a sense of responsibility for the fate of the world, and he expressed hope that Reagan shares that view.

“We believe that the time has come for action, serious and decisive action,” Gorbachev said, adding that he wants to reduce the threat of war in order to “allow us to get down to business on disarmament questions.”

Asked if he and Gorbachev could do business, Reagan replied, “We’re going to find out.”

Accompanied by Wife

Gorbachev, wearing an overcoat, plaid scarf and his trademark fedora, stepped from a Soviet Aeroflot jet into a brisk chill on this wind-swept island nation, followed by his wife, Raisa, and top Soviet officials.

Standing on a red carpet at the foot of the plane ramp, where local officials had waited 20 minutes past schedule for the Soviet leader’s somewhat tardy aircraft, Gorbachev delivered a short, extemporaneous speech into a television reporter’s hand-held microphone.

Reagan spent most of the day meeting privately with his top foreign policy advisers at the home of U.S. Ambassador Nicholas Ruwe, who turned his official residence over to Reagan for the weekend summit.

After meetings and lunch with his advisers, Reagan paid a courtesy call Friday afternoon on Iceland’s president, Vigdis Finnbogadottir, at her bayside residence, a medieval manor on the outskirts of the city.

‘A Sticking Point’

Acknowledging that the new Administration proposal doesn’t substantially alter U.S. policy on nuclear testing, Speakes said it gives both countries “more impetus toward reaching agreement on verification, which has been a sticking point.”

Reagan’s offer to submit the nuclear testing treaties for ratification if the Soviets meet certain conditions apparently was an attempt to deflect the propaganda advantage gained by the Soviets’ unilateral imposition of a comprehensive nuclear test ban.

That ban has been in effect for more than a year, and Gorbachev has repeatedly urged the United States to join it. But the Administration has refused on the ground that it needs to continue to test weapons to maintain a strong national defense.

In Washington, House Speaker Thomas P. O’Neill Jr. (D-Mass.) said he shared Reagan’s satisfaction that the Administration and congressional Democrats had substantially narrowed their differences on arms control strategy.

‘Cannot Sit at Table’

O’Neill, who led the Democratic struggle for restrictions on Reagan’s arms control policies, acknowledged that he gave ground because Congress “cannot sit at the bargaining table in Iceland.”

O’Neill said he told Reagan by telephone, “Bring back something solid and strong, and the American people will be proud of you.”

“The dispute threatened to give General Secretary Gorbachev the false impression of a divided America,” Speakes said. “We are satisfied that the agreement with Congress puts Congress and the President on the same wavelength in dealing with the Soviet Union. We enjoy a unified support as we go into this.”

Gorbachev has sought to make the testing issue a centerpiece of his two days of talks with Reagan, but he did not specifically raise the point upon his arrival in Iceland.

Jewish Protesters

Meanwhile, Jewish protesters disrupted a Soviet news briefing Friday by holding up signs demanding that the Kremlin permit their relatives to emigrate from the Soviet Union.

The Soviet officials, who told Western journalists gathered at the Soviets’ headquarters hotel here about economic reforms and greater press freedom under Gorbachev’s year-old regime, fielded some tough questions about human rights.

But when the Jewish protesters held up their signs with photos of their relatives, the officials broke off the briefing.

Despite appeals by the Icelandic government, other Jewish groups who flew to Iceland to dramatize their human rights complaints against the Soviets held news conferences and petitioned U.S. officials to keep their issues on the agenda.

Rights a Major Focus

Reagan has pledged to make human rights issues a major focus of his meetings with Gorbachev, but the Soviet leader has indicated he plans to concentrate on arms control matters.