The World - News from July 26, 1987

West Germany has rejected a Soviet demand that its Pershing 1-A missiles, with U.S.-controlled nuclear warheads, be included in a superpower accord that would eliminate medium- and shorter-range nuclear missiles worldwide. Horst Prayon, a Defense Ministry spokesman, said Bonn will retain the 72 Pershing missiles as long as it faces the threat of superior Soviet conventional forces. Juergen Todenhoefer, disarmament spokesman for Chancellor Helmut Kohl’s party, criticized the Soviet Union for bringing the Pershings into the Geneva arms talks after it appeared that a missile accord was likely. The missiles “were never a part of the Geneva negotiations in the past,” Todenhoefer said.