To Keep Arm’s Length on Angola, Soviets Say

The Soviet Union said Friday that although it believes the Angolan civil war should be settled through negotiations, it regards the issue as a domestic matter and will not impose its views on Angola’s Marxist government.

Clarifying earlier comments of Deputy Foreign Minister Anatoly L. Adamishin, the official Tass news agency said that Adamishin had not called upon the ruling Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola to negotiate directly with rebel leaders of its rightist rival, the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola.

Tass, quoting an authorized translation of Adamishin’s comments, reaffirmed the Soviet viewpoint that if an agreement were reached on the withdrawal of South African and Cuban troops from Angola and if South African and U.S. aid to the rebels were ended, “the Angolans themselves will be able to resolve their domestic problems.”

Rejects UNITA Talks

The Luanda government has reiterated its willingness to grant amnesty to members of UNITA, as the rival group is known, but it has declared repeatedly that it would not enter into negotiations with the rebels or with Jonas Savimbi, the charismatic UNITA leader.

UNITA has been fighting the Luanda government, at first with South African support and then with limited U.S. backing as well, for more than 13 years, virtually from the date of the country’s independence from Portugal.

Although Savimbi has actively sought negotiations, which might lead to a government of national unity or to a power-sharing arrangement, the regime regards UNITA as a South African puppet and continues to insist upon its members’ surrender as the only basis for national reconciliation.

Moscow Embarrassed

African diplomats said Friday that Moscow was embarrassed by Western reports that Adamishin had urged Luanda to open a dialogue with UNITA on the country’s future.

In Moscow’s view, the tentative agreement worked out among Angola, South Africa and Cuba, under U.S. mediation, will “provide for the creation of external conditions for the solution of domestic problems by the Angolans themselves,” Tass quoted Adamishin as saying.

That agreement, announced Monday, provides for the withdrawal of about 3,000 South African troops from southern Angola, establishment of a timetable for the withdrawal of an estimated 50,000 Cuban troops from the country and the implementation of a 10-year-old U.N. plan for the independence of Namibia, which South Africa administers.

Another, hoped-for result would be an end to the Angolan civil war, although that has not been directly included in the U.S.-mediated talks.

What had seemed implicit in the Soviet position for several months, Adamishin appeared to make explicit at a briefing for reporters here Thursday when he referred several times to the need for a dialogue between the government and UNITA and specifically with Savimbi.

On Friday, Tass said that the meaning of Adamishin’s remarks had been distorted by Western news reports. It was actually the United States, the agency said, that believed it “may call on the Luanda government to start a dialogue with Savimbi, to sit down with him at the negotiating table.”

Although the Soviet Union has “very good relations” with the Angolan government, Moscow does not feel it has the right “to give advice to (Luanda) regarding what policy it should pursue inside the country,” Tass quoted Adamishin as saying.

Adamishin played a key role in the talks, meeting frequently with Chester A. Crocker, the U.S. assistant secretary of state for Africa and the mediator in the negotiations. He also maintained close contacts with Angola and Cuba and assigned a top Foreign Ministry official as an “unofficial observer.”