The World - News from March 16, 1988

U.N.-mediated talks on Afghanistan hit a logjam in Geneva as a Soviet deadline for an agreement passed. In Moscow, the Kremlin accused Pakistan and the United States of imposing last-minute conditions on the peace accord and spurning a Kremlin offer to begin withdrawing troops May 15. Pakistan is insisting that an interim government be set up in Kabul before Soviet troops return home. Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev said last month that if a negotiated settlement was signed by March 15, Soviet troops would begin their withdrawal two months later. But Foreign Ministry spokesman Gennady I. Gerasimov said the failure to meet that deadline will delay the start of a troop withdrawal.