Japan, W. Europe Leaders Hail Soviet Proposal

Western European and Japanese leaders Thursday hailed the Soviet Union’s proposal to ban medium- and shorter-range nuclear missiles worldwide.

“If it is without conditions, we warmly welcome it,” said Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher of Britain.

In remarks made public Wednesday night, Kremlin leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev offered to eliminate Soviet medium-range nuclear missiles in Asia if the United States did not insist on keeping 100 medium-range warheads outside Europe.

The Soviet leader also said his country would scrap its shorter-range SS-12/A/B and SS-23 rockets east of the Urals, which the United States has regarded as a threat to China and Japan.

Thatcher said an agreement on eliminating nuclear missiles “must be thoroughly verifiable.”

Any agreement on nuclear missiles would have to be looked at “in relation to the state of other defenses, in particular chemical and conventional weapons, too,” she said.

In Japan, Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone said the proposal “is a policy to welcome.”

Japan had expressed concern that the nuclear threat to Asia might escalate if a U.S.-Soviet arms control accord reduces the number of missiles in Europe but retains missiles based in Asia.

West German Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher hailed the proposal as a “substantial step forward” and said it would greatly aid verification.

The Soviets have insisted that U.S.-controlled nuclear warheads on Pershing 1-A missiles in West Germany be scrapped.

But the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s secretary general, Lord Carrington, said in Madrid that this should not block an agreement at the Geneva arms control talks.

“I can’t believe that a subject introduced at the last minute would impede the progress of an agreement,” he said. Carrington said Secretary of State George P. Shultz had introduced the status of the Pershings into the arms talks agenda at the last minute during an April visit to Moscow.

In Athens, government spokesman Sotiris Kostopoulos told reporters that Greece “applauds every initiative that aims at partial or general nuclear disarmament.”

Leaders of Greece, Sweden, Mexico, Argentina, India and Tanzania are promoting the Five Continent Peace Initiative, seeking a worldwide nuclear weapons ban.