Soviets Still Hedging on Troop Pullout : Key Official Refuses to Confirm Date of Afghan Withdrawal

Soviet authorities continue to back away from the Kremlin’s commitment to pull all Soviet troops out of Afghanistan by Feb. 15.

During an American television interview Sunday, Nikolai V. Shishlin, spokesman for the Central Committee of the Soviet Communist Party, refused repeatedly to say whether the Soviet Union intends to have all of its forces out of Afghanistan by the mid-February deadline set in the Geneva accords signed last spring.

The Soviets complied with an earlier deadline to withdraw half of their troops by Aug. 15, but the Kremlin later announced that it was suspending further troop withdrawals after protesting repeatedly that Pakistan was violating the Geneva accords by continuing to deliver U.S.-supplied arms to the Afghan rebels. There are now about 50,000 Soviet troops in Afghanistan.

February Deadline

Since announcing suspension of the pullouts, Kremlin officials have parried all questions about the Feb. 15 deadline, although none have asserted that the Soviets intend to keep troops in Afghanistan after that date.

President Mikhail S. Gorbachev omitted any mention of the February commitment during his speech to the United Nations last week.

Shishlin said that it is “the first desire” of the Soviet Union to withdraw its troops from Afghanistan, and said “we’ll try our best” to complete the pullout by mid-February. But like his colleagues, he would not reaffirm the Soviet pledge to meet the deadline.

A failure by the Soviet Union to withdraw from Afghanistan could create new complications for its relations with the United States and with China. The Soviet commitment to pull out of Afghanistan was an important factor underlying the Chinese willingness to consider a probable summit between Gorbachev and Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping next year.

‘Formal Pledge’

A U.S. State Department official said Sunday that the Feb. 15 deadline for Soviet withdrawal “is more than a goal. It’s more than a hope. It was a formal pledge to the international community to withdraw. We expect them to live up to their pledge.”

Ambiguity about meeting the February deadline continues at a time when the Soviet Union has launched an intensive effort to try to negotiate some face-saving agreement on the future of Afghanistan after its forces depart.

Last month, a senior Soviet official opened peace talks in Saudi Arabia with some of the Afghan resistance leaders who have been seeking to overthrow the Soviet-backed Afghan government headed by President Najibullah. The Afghan resistance groups are supported by the United States, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan.

In his address last Wednesday to the United Nations, Gorbachev unveiled a series of new proposals on Afghanistan. He called for a cease-fire by Jan. 1, a cutoff in outside supplies to all parties in the civil war, a U.N. peacekeeping force and an international conference on the future of Afghanistan.

Negotiated Settlement

On Sunday, Shishlin appeared to suggest that a Soviet withdrawal is linked to some negotiated settlement concerning Afghanistan.

“I think it’s quite clear that the first desire of the Soviet Union is to withdraw our troops from Afghanistan and really we are interested to see Afghanistan as a neutral, nonaligned and friendly country to my country,” he said on ABC’s “This Week With David Brinkley.”

Another Soviet official, Georgy A. Arbatov, a Central Committee member and Soviet specialist on American affairs, said on a separate interview program that the Feb. 15 deadline “is still in effect.” But he termed it a “goal,” rather than a promise or commitment.