Gorbachev Urges Talks to Limit Naval, Air Activity

Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev proposed Thursday that the Warsaw Pact and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization open consultations on curbing naval and air force activity in the Baltic, North, Norwegian and Greenland seas.

Addressing a public rally in the Soviet Arctic port of Murmansk, Gorbachev suggested that representatives of East and West could meet in Leningrad to discuss banning naval activity in selected areas of shipping lanes and international waters.

Touching on U.S.-Soviet relations, he expressed confidence that a planned summit with President Reagan this year would improve the chances of agreement over intercontinental nuclear weapons and space defenses.

“The meeting with the U.S. President might start a peaceful chain reaction in the sphere of strategic offensive arms, the non-emplacement of arms in space and many other items on a possible agenda of international dialogue,” he said.

In remarks broadcast on Soviet television, Gorbachev proposed cooperation in exploiting the natural resources of the far north and Arctic and suggested that northern countries could also develop an environmental protection plan.

Gorbachev was speaking in the port that is the base of the Soviet northern fleet. In the area for which he proposed talks, Western allies with defense interests include the United States, West Germany, Britain, Norway, Denmark and Iceland.

The security of neutral Sweden and Finland is also tied up with the area. Finnish President Mauno Koivisto is due to visit the Soviet Union today, and analysts said that Gorbachev’s various offers seemed timed to coincide with his trip.

“The U.S.S.R. proposes to start consultations between the Warsaw Pact and NATO on scaling down military activity and restricting the scale of naval and air force activity in the Baltic, North, Norwegian and Greenland seas and also on spreading confidence-building measures to them,” the Soviet leader said.

Gorbachev did not specify what forum he had in mind for these proposed talks.

He said that, if the international political climate improved enough, the Soviet Union might open northern shipping lanes to foreign vessels with the Soviet side providing the services of ice breakers.

Gorbachev repeated a Soviet offer to guarantee a nuclear weapon-free zone in northern Europe if such an accord could be reached. He said the North Pole should be “a pole of peace.”

Since he took office in 1985, Gorbachev has repeated or reshaped Soviet proposals for reducing tensions and creating international security arrangements in areas as far-flung as the Pacific and Indian oceans and the Mediterranean Sea.

Gorbachev’s speech touched on the accord in principle that Secretary of State George P. Shultz and Foreign Minister Eduard A. Shevardnadze reached in Washington last month to eliminate medium- and shorter-range nuclear missiles.

He said the accord showed the world “is close to a major step in the field of real nuclear disarmament.” Gorbachev is due to sign the agreement at a summit with Reagan after Shevardnadze and Shultz meet in Moscow later this month.