The Washington Summit : Leaders Around World Hail Signing of Missile Pact

Some marked the occasion with champagne toasts, others gathered around bonfires and cheered, and at least one group set free a flight of peace doves. All were hailing the signing of a treaty at the Washington summit to eliminate U.S. and Soviet ground-launched intermediate-range nuclear missiles.

Governments around the world Thursday welcomed the treaty as a step toward further and more meaningful reductions in nuclear arsenals. Their statements were echoed by disarmament groups and, generally, by newspaper editorials.

Not all officials were as enthusiastic as Brazil’s Foreign Minister Roberto Abreu Sodre, who called the treaty “the most important historical fact since the Second World War.” France’s President Francois Mitterrand said, “It’s not much,” but he added that it is important nevertheless.

Overshadowed by Cricket

Britain’s Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher said, “It’s a marvelous Christmas present,” but for many of her countrymen, the big event in Washington paled alongside a domestic incident that took precedence even in the serious national newspapers--the highly unusual spectacle of a cricket player arguing with an umpire.

In several world capitals, notably Beijing and New Delhi, officials emphasized that the treaty affects only a small part of the superpowers’ full arsenals--that they will still have weapons enough to destroy the world many times over.

And elsewhere, in Jerusalem and Johannesburg, South Africa, for example, there was disappointment that President Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev concentrated on missiles and devoted relatively scant attention to such matters as the emigration of Soviet Jews and regional disputes.

In West Germany, as in Britain--both have bases equipped with the missiles earmarked for elimination--there was a sense of celebration and shared achievement but clear differences about what the treaty means in terms of the Atlantic Alliance’s defenses.

For Thatcher and her Conservative government, the treaty emphasizes the need for the West to hold on to 4,000 or so tactical or battlefield nuclear weapons--those with ranges under 300 miles--that are not covered by the treaty. Thatcher’s position is that only these weapons can compensate for Moscow’s superiority in conventional forces and chemical weapons.

Ominous Overtones

For some in West Germany, the treaty has ominous overtones. Volker Ruhe, defense spokesman for Chancellor Helmut Kohl’s Christian Democratic Union, said Thursday in an article published in the London Independent that “all the remaining land-based systems (will now be) exclusively on German soil.” This, he argued, violates the alliance’s doctrine of risk-sharing.

Still, Kohl said the treaty was a victory for alliance resolve.

French reaction to the treaty was perhaps the coolest of all. Alain Peyrefitte, a Gaullist with long experience in politics, said in an article for the conservative newspaper Le Figaro that he smells “the perfume of Yalta.” He referred to the World War II conference at Yalta at which the allied leaders settled many of the territorial questions raised by the defeat of Nazi Germany in World War II.

Peyrefitte, a former minister of justice, a deputy in the National Assembly and a member of Premier Jacques Chirac’s Gaullist party, went on to say: “Once before, in 1945, an old and weak President of the United States abandoned half of Europe. . . . Once more, an old and weak American President is convinced of the good will of the Soviet empire. Is he getting ready to abandon the other half of Europe?”

Champagne and Bonfires

Anti-nuclear protesters in Britain celebrated the treaty with champagne and bonfires, and in Italy, doves of peace were released to fly over a U.S. military installation where some of the missiles scheduled for elimination are kept.

Italy’s Foreign Minister Giulio Andreotti applauded the treaty, saying that “for the first time, there is agreement to eliminate an entire category of offensive nuclear weapons.” Europe, he said, sees the elimination of a “threat directed primarily at herself,” and he called for further talks to reduce other types of nuclear arms.

Italy’s usually divided political parties were unanimous in expressing approval of the treaty. Nilde Iotti, a Communist and Speaker of the Chamber of Deputies, hailed the treaty as “the first step of a new history.” Is it too much, she asked, “to hope that we can reach a world where peace and freedom are guaranteed to all?”

‘First Real Step’

President Chaim Herzog of Israel hailed the agreement as “a milestone in world history, a first real step toward lifting the atomic threat clouding the future of the human race.”

In general, though, Israelis who followed the proceedings in Washington concentrated on questions of immediate concern to Israel--the Arab-Israeli conflict and the fate of Soviet Jews.

Foreign Minister Shimon Peres and the political left lamented that the Middle East peace process was low on the agenda in Washington. But Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir and the political right was not displeased that Reagan and Gorbachev had other priorities. Shamir seems to be content to bide his time, calculating that Israel, not its Arab antagonists, will profit from the delay because there will be less pressure to give up occupied territories.

In Arab capitals, governments and the news media welcomed the treaty but expressed concern that regional issues--the seven-year-old Iran-Iraq War and the stagnating Middle East peace process--were virtually overlooked.

Egypt’s President Hosni Mubarak hailed the treaty as “a great accomplishment” but added that Egypt hopes “the impetus generated by this step will be used to resolve regional disputes . . . with the Middle East being at the top of the list.”

Arab newspapers in the Persian Gulf region, which reflect their governments’ opinions, also voiced this concern, and more directly.

The Kuwaiti newspaper Al Rai al Amm said, “Moscow and Washington are only interested in bilateral questions, neglecting problems (such as) the Palestine question and the gulf war.”

The Jordanian newspaper Al Dustour said in a bitter editorial that the summit meeting in Washington will be a black mark in Arab eyes for focusing almost exclusively on nuclear weapons and ignoring the sufferings of displaced Palestinians.

‘Closer to Home’

South Africans were also thinking about something other than missiles. As the liberal Cape Times observed, the war in Angola “is closer to home than the nuclear arms race,” and it is “a measure of the potential dangers which the Angolan civil war represents that Angola is on the agenda of the summit meeting, along with the Persian Gulf, Afghanistan and other theaters of regional conflict.”

In Angola, South African troops have been fighting guerrillas from neighboring Namibia, which are based and trained in Angola, a client-state of the Soviet Union. The U.S. government has sought repeatedly to help resolve the matter.

China’s official newspaper, the People’s Daily, said in a commentary that although the treaty provides for eliminating only “a tiny portion of the nuclear weapons of these two countries,” it has been “approved by the whole world because it is the first treaty reducing nuclear weapons . . . since nuclear weapons came into the world.”

‘Worth Welcoming’

“If the treaty can be carried out,” the paper said, “it will become the initial step . . . toward nuclear disarmament, will certainly soften international tension to some extent, and will be worth welcoming. . . .

“However, we should be aware of the fact that the signing of the intermediate missile treaty is just a beginning (and) constitutes only about 4% of all the nuclear weapons of the United States and the Soviet Union. Even if all the missiles of this kind were destroyed, the two countries still possess enough nuclear arms to destroy the whole world many times.”

A spokesman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry said that Soviet and U.S. weapons continue to be “a grave threat to the security of mankind,” but that his government welcomes the treaty and views it as the first step toward nuclear disarmament.

“We hope,” he said, “that the United States and the Soviet Union . . . will continue to hold serious negotiations on drastic nuclear arms reduction, reach agreements and implement them truly.”

Japan’s Foreign Minister Sosuke Uno issued a statement that, like many others, referred to the treaty as “the first step in the process of nuclear disarmament.”

Broadened Mood

The Japanese daily Asahi Shimbun said the Tokyo government “hopes that . . . the mood of relaxed tension between East and West can be broadened to help resolve regional conflicts such as Afghanistan and Cambodia. . . . The Soviet Union is expected to clarify its posture toward the Asia-Pacific region. . . . “

South Korea’s vice foreign minister, Kim Han Kyong, said the treaty “is a significant step forward in contributing to world peace. We hope it will also contribute to maintaining peace on the Korean peninsula.”

In New Delhi, members of the Indian Parliament applauded the treaty by pounding on their desks and stomping their feet.

Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi called the treaty “a truly momentous development.” True, he said, “it envisages the elimination of only around 3%” of the superpowers’ combined nuclear arsenals, and it “should not be considered as more than a beginning,” but it is nonetheless “a historic beginning, a vital beginning.”

Material for this article was provided by Times correspondents Tyler Marshall in London; Stanley Meisler in Paris; William D. Montalbano in Rome; Dan Fisher in Jerusalem; Michael Ross in Cairo; Michael Parks in Johannesburg, South Africa; David Holley in Beijing; Nick B. Williams Jr. in Seoul, South Korea; Rone Tempest in New Delhi, and William R. Long in Rio de Janeiro.