Kremlin Responds to U.S. Plan for Aid to Afghan Factions

The Soviet Union on Saturday gave the United States its much-anticipated response to the Reagan Administration’s compromise proposal for the two countries to continue supporting opposing factions in Afghanistan after the withdrawal of Soviet troops from the war.

The contents of the message from Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard A. Shevardnadze were not made public, and State Department spokeswoman Sondra McCarty would confirm only that the message had been received and that it was under study by State Department officials.

An agreement negotiated at Geneva under the auspices of the United Nations will be signed later this week, calling for the removal of the 115,000 Soviet troops and ending the Soviet combat role in the eight-year war.

Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev, in an address published Saturday in Moscow, declared that the signing of the accord in Geneva “will begin a new stage both in the development of events in Afghanistan and simultaneously in Soviet-Afghan relations.”

In the speech, delivered Friday in Tashkent, Gorbachev confirmed that the Soviet troop withdrawal will begin May 15.

Shevardnadze’s reply on the issue of continued military support to the Afghan factions came just hours after Secretary of State George P. Shultz returned to Washington from a grueling trip to the Middle East where he tried again to generate support for an international conference on Arab-Israeli strife.

There was speculation that Shultz would fly to Geneva on Thursday for the signing of the accord on Afghanistan.

The message relayed to the State Department from Moscow on Saturday presumably addressed the U.S. request for formal confirmation that Moscow accepts the U.S. position that the United States will continue sending military support to the anti-government guerrilla forces in Afghanistan as long as the Soviets continue to aid the Moscow-backed regime.

Reagan Administration officials see that as the basis for a later withdrawal of aid from both sides.

Shultz and Shevardnadze grappled with the issue last month when the Soviet foreign minister visited Washington.

The United States was prepared to stop sending arms to the anti-Communist guerrillas, the moujahedeen , if Moscow would end similar support to the Afghan army.

The Soviet government rejected that approach on grounds that Moscow is required by treaty obligation to support Kabul’s armed forces. The United States sought to break the impasse with the proposal that it continue its support to the resistance as well.

It asked that Moscow accept such an arrangement in writing.

Although that matter had not been finally resolved by the United States and the Soviet Union, U.N. officials announced Friday that the accord is ready for signing in Geneva.

The Geneva accord is to be signed by Afghanistan and by neighboring Pakistan, where millions of Afghan refugees are living and where much of the Afghan resistance is based. The United States and the Soviet Union are to act as guarantors of the settlement.

The U.S.-supported guerrillas took no part in the negotiations and are not expected to be represented at the signing ceremonies.

Under the Geneva accord, the Soviet withdrawal would be completed in nine months, with half of the Kremlin’s troops departing within three months. There have been reports in recent days that extensive preparations for the withdrawal have begun.

Completion of the agreement is viewed by Administration officials as a major step toward clearing the air for a successful meeting between President Reagan and Gorbachev in Moscow in late May.

Officials also hope to see the Senate ratify the new treaty on eliminating intermediate-range nuclear missiles before Reagan departs for the summit. The President, in his weekly radio address Saturday, urged prompt action by the Senate.