U.S. Prompted Tatar Protest, Soviets Say

Soviet authorities accused American diplomats Thursday of instigating street demonstrations by Crimean Tatars seeking to return of their homeland, which was taken from them in 1944 by Josef Stalin.

The U.S. Embassy dismissed the accusation as “absurd.” Embassy spokesman Jaroslav Verner said this shows the limits of glasnost, the policy of public openness espoused by Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev.

Verner said there is nothing wrong with American diplomats contacting Soviet citizens, including the protesting Tatars.

The police, meanwhile, began taking steps to stifle renewed public protests by the Tatars, who have been demonstrating for more than a week in the center of Moscow. Last weekend, they carried out an unprecedented 24-hour vigil at the edge of Red Square.

The Soviet actions appeared to reflect growing impatience with the Tatars. Earlier in the week, the authorities had set up a meeting between the Tatars and President Andrei A. Gromyko, but since Tuesday, officials have described the Tatars as “extremists.”

‘Limits of Tolerance’

“The authorities seem to have reached the limits of their tolerance,” a Western diplomat said, asking that he not be named.

A nine-member commission headed by Gromyko has been formed to consider the Tatars’ complaint that they were unjustly deported from their autonomous republic in Crimea after Stalin accused them of helping invading German troops in World War II.

The Tatars want their homeland, which in 1954 became part of the Ukraine, to be re-established so that those who want to return may do so. Soviet authorities have asked for time to work out a solution and warned that the wishes of other ethnic groups living in the Crimean Peninsula must be considered.

The Soviet protest about U.S. activity focused on Shaun M. Byrnes, first secretary of the embassy and chief of a section concerned with internal Soviet political developments.

Byrnes was shown on the main evening television news program, Vremya, walking with three of the Tatar activists, apparently at their headquarters in Ismailovo Park. His face was circled to set him apart from the others.

Tass, the official Soviet news agency, described Byrnes as the chief American “consultant on confrontation.” It said Byrnes had “contrived to have a secret meeting with the most vociferous self-styled leaders of the group.”

“It is easy to guess,” Tass said, “what their secret conversation in the dusk was about if in the morning a group of extremists tried to stage anti-social actions in Moscow streets.”

Byrnes and other American diplomats, Tass said, were guilty of “gross interference in the internal affairs” of the Soviet Union.

Meanwhile, Tass said, the police warned about 800 Tatars gathered in Moscow that they face arrest if they continue to demonstrate. Many of them, Tass said, have already left for their homes, mainly in Central Asia.

Individual Tatars said that policemen woke them early Thursday at the private homes where they were staying and warned them they could be prosecuted for violation of internal passport laws if they did not leave Moscow.

Policemen barred them from taking part in a demonstration planned for outside Tass headquarters, one of the Tatars said. He said they were allowed to meet in a park on the far northeast side of the city.