U.S. Should Strictly Abide by ABM Treaty Terms, Bonn Says

Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher told two U.S. envoys Thursday that West Germany believes the United States should strictly comply with the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty with the Soviet Union.

Genscher, meeting with Paul H. Nitze, the senior State Department adviser on arms control, and Assistant Secretary of Defense Richard N. Perle, emphasized that unless there are prior negotiations with the Soviets, Washington should not broaden its interpretation of the ABM treaty in order to test elements of the controversial Strategic Defense Initiative.

Chancellor Helmut Kohl had given much the same message Wednesday concerning SDI, President Reagan’s “Star Wars” space-based missile defense system. Basically, the West Germans were warning Washington, in terms even firmer than those employed Wednesday by the British, that the United States should not unilaterally loosen the ABM treaty.

Soviet Position

In Moscow on Thursday, Soviet Foreign Ministry Gennady I. Gerasimov said Washington, by taking a broader view of the ABM treaty, could scuttle attempts to reach an arms limitation agreement and open the way to a new arms race.

Nitze and Perle are visiting West European capitals to explain to the Western allies the Reagan Administration’s present view of the treaty. The treaty has been adhered to in general, but in 1985, U.S. officials declared that it does not specifically prohibit space defense programs based on new ideas--lasers, for example.

Genscher said that Washington’s “basic operating principle” should be a strict reading of the treaty. He said the United States should consult its allies in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization on any plans involving the Strategic Defense Initiative and the ABM treaty.

The discussions with Nitze and Perle, he said, “underscored the need to submit to careful examination among the alliance partners the consequences of any possible unilateral decision for the Geneva negotiations (on arms control) and East-West relations as a whole.”

Britons Reassured

Nitze and Perle told British officials Wednesday in London that Washington contemplates no early deployment of “Star Wars” technology. Yet many NATO officials are concerned about remarks made by Defense Secretary Caspar W. Weinberger that U.S. tests of a space-based defense system could begin by next year and lead to limited deployment by the early 1990s.

“The President wants to deploy,” Weinberger has been quoted as saying.

On their arrival here Wednesday, Nitze and Perle found Kohl’s position spelled out in a newspaper interview in which he was quoted as saying:

“The West German government in all its declarations has always said it regards the (“Star Wars”) research as justified because the Soviet Union has conducted the same. But we have always added that this research must be done within the framework of the ABM treaty and that not only must the Western allies be consulted at every step, but the effort must converge in a mutual solution with the Soviet Union.”