Bonn Politician Hails East’s Missile Offer : Honecker Proposes No Modernizing of Short-Range Weapons

A leading member of West Germany’s ruling Christian Democrat coalition Tuesday welcomed a pledge by East Germany that the Warsaw Pact powers would not modernize its short-range nuclear missiles if the NATO countries promised not to update theirs.

The statement issued by Alfred Dregger, parliamentary leader of the ruling coalition, appeared to place the government at odds with the overall policy of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

In Brussels, late Tuesday, NATO officials were reported to be seeking a clarification on the East German offer, worried that it could broaden differences between West Germany and its allies.

NATO, led by the United States, wants to put a priority on reducing both intercontinental missiles and the imbalance in conventional forces in Europe, while most Germans would like to see a reduction in short-range missiles included in the negotiations.

The East German proposal was made by Communist leader Erich Honecker in a letter to Chancellor Helmut Kohl, which was published by the East German news agency ADN on Monday and confirmed by the chancellor’s office here.

The news agency said Honecker wrote Kohl: “If you were prepared to forgo modernization in this area, steps could be undertaken on the basis of balance and mutual security to remove imbalances through further zero solutions.”

The United States and the Soviet Union agreed in a treaty signed last month in Washington to eliminate worldwide two types of ground-launched intermediate-range missiles--those with ranges from 300 to 600 miles and those with ranges of 600 to 3,000 miles. The suggestion by Honecker deals with short-range missiles--also known as battlefield or tactical missiles--based in both East and West Germany.

Both Sides of Border

In his statement Tuesday, Dregger declared: “We welcome East Germany’s support for an inclusion of land-based atomic weapons with a range under 500 kilometers (300 miles) in the arms control process.

“These systems threaten Germany almost exclusively on both sides of the partition border. Therefore it is in our interest for disarmament to be applied in this area.”

The chancellor’s office said Tuesday that Kohl is preparing an official answer to Honecker’s suggestion. However, Dregger is an influential, conservative politician within the party hierarchy and presumably would not speak on his own.

“The CDU (Christian Democratic Union),” said Dregger, “wants the number of short-range missiles to be reduced to a minimum sufficient to prevent a massing of (Warsaw Pact) conventional attack forces.”

West German leaders of all parties have been urging that the short-range missiles be made part of the next overall step in arms control talks. But the United States, along with Britain and France, want to hold on to their tactical nuclear armory until the seven-member Warsaw Pact reduces its enormous advantage in conventional forces.

Further, some senior NATO officers would like to upgrade and modernize existing, aging, short-range nuclear missiles, as a way of compensating for the loss of the intermediate-range weapons, which under the new treaty must be eliminated within three years.

East Germany, like West Germany, does not control the nuclear warheads based inside its borders, and it is not in a position to speak for the other members of the Warsaw Pact. Thus, diplomatic sources here said that Honecker would not have made such an important offer without Soviet approval.