U.S., Soviets See Some Gains in Arms Talks

The United States and the Soviet Union, completing two days of negotiations here, said Friday that some progress in arms control and human rights issues had been achieved but that there were no major breakthroughs or even modest interim agreements.

Efforts to reach formal agreement on two minor issues related to limiting strategic arms--considered possible when the sessions opened--failed instead, Secretary of State George P. Shultz announced. But both sides maintained that those efforts are still alive and might produce a pact before the Reagan Administration leaves office in January.

Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard A. Shevardnadze, who led the Soviet negotiating team, insisted that the two-day session was “not a summing up, absolutely not a farewell meeting. This is a renewal of our dialogue. . . . There will be more negotiations, more talks, and moreover, there will be more results before the end of the Reagan Administration.”

Shultz said the talks were important for “their pattern: orderly, systematic, regular, with an understood agenda covering subjects that once were practically impossible to talk about. That was most fundamental. . . . We have in fact here something (a process) that works, that has produced results.”

Although U.S.-Soviet arms talks continue in Geneva and in a 35-nation, European-wide forum in Vienna, American officials saw little hope this year for detailed negotiations of the kind just ended.

Shultz and Shevardnadze could meet again at the United Nations next week and again in Vienna if the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe ends this year. Similarly, President Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev could meet again in Oslo if the Nobel Peace Prize is awarded to them, as rumored, for the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty they signed in December.

But no more Reagan-Gorbachev summits or wide-ranging Shultz-Shevardnadze negotiations are in prospect during the waning days of this Administration, U.S. officials said.

Shevardnadze, in what Shultz called a “touching end” to his meeting with Reagan on Friday afternoon, presented the President with “a substantial-looking medallion” commemorating the INF treaty. The Soviets have minted very few of the medallions, and Shultz said Shevardnadze gave the first one to Reagan, “saying he regarded the President as the author” of the agreement, which eliminated the two nations’ arsenals of medium-range missiles.

A four-page U.S.-Soviet statement issued at the meeting’s conclusion said the talks had been “detailed and frank.”

”. . . The two sides will continue to seek progress across the (entire) agenda” of U.S.-Soviet relations, including arms control, regional Third World conflicts, human rights and bilateral concerns, it said.

According to the statement, the officials made “some further progress” on two of the issues in the ambitious Strategic Arms Reduction Talks (START) treaty currently under negotiation by the superpowers. Those points concern the nations’ arsenals of air-launched cruise missiles and verification methods for mobile land-based missiles.

But it indicated that no headway was made on sea-launched cruise missiles (SLCM), which constitute one of the chief obstacles to a START accord because of the difficulty in distinguishing between nuclear and conventionally armed weapons.

Chides U.S. on Talks

Shevardnadze, at his news conference, accused the United States of dragging its feet on resolving verification procedures for SLCMs. Reagan’s favorite Russian proverb--”trust but verify”--”seems to be applicable when it applies to the Soviet Union but not to the United States,” he complained, adding that “one has to get used to one’s own activities being verified.”

Both sides had proposed that one small, largely resolved aspect of the START treaty be lifted out and made into a formal, separate agreement now in order to continue the momentum toward a full treaty. But each side found difficulties with the other’s idea.

The United States wanted to ban encryption, or secret coding, of ballistic missile test flight data that are transmitted back to the ground. This was essentially agreed to at the Reagan-Gorbachev summit last December in Washington.

But the Soviets asked that the encryption ban also cover cruise missiles, a weapon system in which the United States has an advantage. The United States is not yet willing to go that far, although it does not currently encrypt information on those tests.

Nonetheless, the U.S. encryption proposal is still “very much alive,” a senior Administration official said, and could produce agreement before the end of the Administration.

The Soviets proposed putting into effect new limits on the number of warheads that could be carried on various types of ballistic missiles on both sides.

But the United States saw several objectionable points: It does not want such a provision to cover missiles it is developing for its allies, such as the Trident II sub-launched missile for the British, for example. In addition, detailed provisions for intrusive on-site inspection might have to be negotiated first in order to verify compliance with the limits. And finally, such an agreement putting limits on actual weapons might have to go to the Senate for ratification.

In the end, the United States concluded that working out such an agreement would be “an immense undertaking,” Shultz said, “perhaps too big for this kind of thing.” But Shevardnadze indicated that the Soviet side will pursue the idea at the Geneva arms talks in hopes of reaching agreement before the end of the year.

Upbeat on Rights Talks

Shevardnadze was more upbeat than Shultz about prospects for concluding the 35-nation Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe this year, even predicting completion by “the end of October or early November.” He claimed that “80% to 85% of the problems” on human rights being discussed have been solved.

But Shultz cited the need for more Soviet improvement on human rights before the West will end the conference and begin talks on reducing conventional forces in Europe. The West wants the Soviets to release more political prisoners and to adopt into Soviet law several reforms. Soviet action so far has been “reasonably promising,” he said, “but we’re not quite there yet.”

Soviet officials told the U.S. negotiators that many proposed changes in Soviet laws, including those providing for free elections, freedom of conscience and emigration, will be introduced into the Soviet legislative process in the fall. In addition, the Soviets have agreed to receive a U.S. team of psychiatrists to investigate Western charges of abuse of dissidents in Soviet psychiatric hospitals.

Shevardnadze also said Moscow would like to have a meeting next week at the United Nations of the foreign ministers of the United States, the Soviet Union, Pakistan and Afghanistan to consider Soviet charges of Pakistani violations of the Geneva peace agreement on the Afghanistan civil war.

He repeated Soviet charges that Pakistan is violating the agreement by continuing to provide arms and other assistance to the moujahedeen guerrillas seeking to oust the Soviet-backed Kabul government. At the time the accords were signed last April, the United States reserved the right to continue supporting the rebels as long as Moscow provided military aid to the Afghan army.

Shevardnadze said he told Shultz “that the situation is becoming serious and we will have to give serious consideration to what we should do next to prevent the Geneva agreements from becoming just a piece of paper.”

Asked what options are under consideration, Shevardnadze said the four-way foreign ministers meeting would be a good first step. He added that “other options are also available”--possibly a veiled reference to a return of Soviet forces to Afghanistan.