NATO, East Bloc Pledge to Improve Rights, Security

Delegates from 35 nations, meeting Sunday in Vienna, formally adopted an ambitious array of arms control and human rights proposals hailed as a new landmark in relations between East and West.

Winding up nearly 27 months of European security talks, the delegates put their seals on a document that pledges greater human rights safeguards and better East-West trade and commits NATO and the Warsaw Pact to negotiations aimed at sharp cutbacks in conventional weapons in Europe.

Represented at the Vienna talks, formally called the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe, were the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s 16 members, the seven members of the Warsaw Pact and 12 neutral and nonaligned European nations.

A senior official at NATO headquarters in Brussels welcomed the new conventional arms control talks expected to begin soon as a result of Sunday’s action, adding: “We sincerely hope we will be able to make rapid progress in these very important new talks.”

Many European strategists believe that conventional arms reductions are more essential to long-term, East-West stability than negotiated cuts in nuclear weapons.

In Vienna, Ambassador Warren Zimmermann of the U.S. delegation declared: “This is an excellent document. It is a milestone . . . but it is not the end of the process.”

And Soviet chief delegate Yuri B. Kashlev said the security and cooperation process “is being elevated to a qualitatively new level unprecedented since Helsinki.”

The process began with the 1975 Helsinki Accords among all the European nations except Albania and including the United States and Canada.

But Zimmermann noted that as he spoke, one of the Helsinki signatories--Czechoslovakia--was violating the right to freedom of assembly by suppressing a rally in Prague. Czech police, using batons, dogs and water cannons, broke up the rally commemorating the death of a 20-year-old student, Jan Palach, who set himself on fire on Jan. 16, 1969, to protest the Soviet-led invasion of Czechoslovakia that crushed the country’s reform movement.

Secretary of State George P. Shultz flew from Washington on Sunday to attend formal ratification ceremonies in Vienna this week.

Under the human rights provisions of the new accord, a special mechanism was approved through which countries may complain to others about human rights abuses. Under that mechanism, a government must reply if another government requests information about suspected abuses, and governments are empowered to demand meetings to discuss suspected abuses.

Other human rights provisions include a pledge by all 35 nations to:

-- Let independent groups monitor their governments’ human rights behavior and the state of their environments.

-- Permit religious education, allow religious literature to be distributed and permit churches to do charity work.

-- Resolve outstanding emigration applications within six months and grant visas for family reunification within one to three months.

-- Facilitate tourism and let Western visitors stay in East Bloc homes.

-- Provide more information needed by Western businessmen trading with the East.

Soviet delegate Kashlev described the human rights provisions as “a major breakthrough in this area.”

As part of the general agreement, the Western Allies approved a human rights conference to be held in Moscow in 1991, in exchange for commitments by the Soviet Union to liberalize restrictions on their citizens.

Gorbachev Praised

Zimmermann and Kashlev both complimented Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev on Sunday for his “new thinking,” which they said was an essential ingredient in reaching the new accords.

“I think it is more than I could have expected in November, 1986, (when the Vienna talks began),” Zimmermann said. “It has succeeded in expanding the quality of the commitments way beyond what we expected.”

Until the last hour, Romania held out for revisions in 17 human rights clauses, and even during the formal proceedings Sunday, its representative declared:

“Under the pretext of concern for human rights and religious freedom, the concluding document contains provisions not in keeping with the spirit of the Helsinki Final Act and the realities of the time. We feel no commitment to implement those provisions to which Romania does not agree or considers inadequate.”

Romania is generally regarded as having one of the worst human rights records of the 35 nations involved, and Zimmermann called the Romanian statement “absurd and illegal.”

Romania Will Be Judged

He added: “Every one of us is going to judge Romania on the basis of all the commitments. If it decides not to implement some of them, it will pay a price in relations with other countries, and in its image in the world.”

As for the future, major attention was focused on the mandate for new conventional arms talks that would cover military forces from “the Atlantic to the Urals.”

The new talks will replace the long-moribund Mutual and Balanced Force Reduction talks that have dragged on for 15 years with no success.

Key provisions in the new mandate for arms control talks call for a “stable and secure balance” of conventional forces, the “elimination of disparities prejudicial to stability and security” and as a priority, eliminating the capability “for launching surprise attack and for initiating large-scale offensive action.”

“The important thing,” a high NATO official said, “is that the Soviets recognize the principle of asymmetry, that is, that they are going to have to reduce troop strength and offensive weaponry more than we do--to find a balance.”

Ambassador Stephen Ledogar, who headed the U.S. team in the arms side of the negotiations just ended here, spoke optimistically about the outlook for the new conventional weapons talks, which are expected to begin around March 9.

A special task force will meet at NATO headquarters in Brussels today to begin working out the West’s opening position at the arms discussions.