Walesa Says He Wants to Go to Moscow to Reassure Soviets

Solidarity leader Lech Walesa said Thursday that he wants to visit Moscow to reassure the Soviet Union about historic reforms that reinstate his banned union and allow Poland’s first free elections since World War II.

“I don’t want to go there to agitate or irritate but to seek understanding for the Polish reforms . . . in a way that will not be suggestive or stir things up,” Walesa told a news conference.

The reform package signed Wednesday by Walesa and Minister of Internal Affairs Czeslaw Kiszczak will make Solidarity legal again, permit independent political clubs and bring the opposition into Parliament.

It will also create a democratically elected Senate with a limited veto right over legislation--the first free legislature in Eastern Europe since the Communist takeover after World War II.

A senior Walesa aide said the Solidarity leader will probably visit Moscow but that Soviet officials have asked for assurances that he will not cause problems before extending an invitation.

Walesa told the news conference he wants to assure Moscow that the Solidarity-led opposition in Poland does not want to cause a disturbance in Eastern Europe or upset the perestroika (reform) process of Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev.

“We would like to resolve our problems and not disturb anyone, . . . above all, don’t disturb,” he said.

This amounts to a pledge that a reborn Solidarity will not repeat the turbulent challenge to Communist rule that it mounted in 1980-81, alarming the Kremlin and bringing about the imposition of martial law.