Soviets Switch Negotiators

The Soviet Union is removing Deputy Foreign Minister Yuli Vorontsov from his job as chief negotiator with the United States on nuclear arms control and replacing him with a veteran deputy, Alexei Obukhov, a senior U.S. official said today.

This frees Vorontsov, who is one of Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev’s chief trouble-shooters, to concentrate on Afghanistan, from which Moscow has said it wants to withdraw its forces this year, and other regional issues. Obukhov is a seasoned negotiator who earned a master’s degree at the University of Chicago and is fluent in English.