Text of Soviet Leader’s Arrival Statement

Here is the text of Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev’s remarks Tuesday upon arrival at Kennedy International Airport, as translated from the Russian by Viktor Sukhudreyev of the Soviet Foreign Ministry:

t of all, I should like, on behalf of the Soviet people, to extend my greetings to the United Nations and to express my feelings of profound respect for the American people and for all New Yorkers.

I feel the program of my stay here, the stay of my delegation, has taken shape. I think it’s an interesting program and I’m certainly satisfied with it.

We will be having meetings with the secretary general of the United Nations, (Javier) Perez de Cuellar, with the president of this current session of the United Nations General Assembly, Mr. (Dante) Caputo, and I hope those meetings will be useful. The Soviet Union hopes to broaden and expand its cooperation within the United Nations framework, with all the states that make up the United Nations.

Crucial Changes

I shall be addressing the United Nations General Assembly tomorrow. We certainly have what we could say to this most important forum, this world community. We are living in a world which is going through some very crucial changes, and all nations have their own concerns, their own interests. We shall be sharing our concerns and our interests in analyzing and thinking over the current situation.

We will have a meeting with United States President Ronald Reagan and with his successor, George Bush. We have agreed on such a meeting. I am indeed truly happy to have this new opportunity to meet with them. I believe that the very fact that this meeting is going to take place says a great deal, especially in terms of the active state of Soviet-American relations and discussions. And that is good. We have not arranged any formal agenda, so either side will be free, openly and frankly, to raise any questions that it wishes to.

‘Greater Dynamism’

I believe that we can safely say even now that the conversations and the meeting itself will doubtless promote greater dynamism in the dialogue and an expansion of cooperation between our two countries. We believe--and we hope that is the belief of the American side as well--that this meeting will serve the best interests of the United States and the Soviet Union; indeed, of all the world.

Within the framework of the program of our visit, we will have some other meetings with some public and business circles in this country, with representatives of other countries. I trust these will be useful and fruitful days. We are certainly prepared to make our contribution to that end.

Thank you.