Bonn to Keep Pressing for Missile Talks

West Germany, rejecting a rebuff from the Bush Administration, said Tuesday it is sticking with its demand for early superpower talks on short-range nuclear weapons, a decision that is expected to deepen the conflict within the 16-nation NATO alliance over the divisive issue.

Bonn and Washington will be pressing their conflicting views in meetings with North Atlantic Treaty Organization partners before a summit meeting in Brussels at the end of May.

“We are going into the talks with our partners with the same position that we have already worked out,” Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher told reporters Tuesday, a day after he and Defense Minister Gerhard Stoltenberg returned from Washington.

They had failed to win agreement from Secretary of State James A. Baker III and other U.S. officials on Bonn’s demand for early talks with the Kremlin on reducing short-range nuclear missiles.

Genscher told a hastily arranged news conference after briefing Chancellor Helmut Kohl on the Washington visit that Bonn would seek “a common view” in discussions with NATO partners.

Genscher said his Washington talks had resulted in a “better understanding” of both sides’ positions, but he gave no indication there would soon be a break through in attempts to resolve the dispute.

The West German public is generally opposed to the missiles because their range of less than 300 miles means their targets would be limited to those on German soil.

The public mood is seen as hurting Chancellor Helmut Kohl’s chances of remaining in office after the 1990 Parliament elections.

The United States and Britain are concerned that negotiating the missiles issue with the Soviets could lead to stripping the NATO allies of ground-based nuclear weaponry, leaving them at the mercy of stronger Warsaw Pact conventional forces. They want talks on reducing short-range missiles delayed until East-West conventional forces in Europe are more in balance.

Talks in Madrid

To counter Bonn’s drive for NATO support of its position, the State Department sent cables Tuesday to U.S. ambassadors in NATO capitals, instructing them to present the U.S. argument against early talks with the Soviets.

Rozanne L. Ridgway, assistant secretary of state for European affairs, will present the U.S. position to senior officials of Spain, Greece and France in Madrid on May 16.

State Department spokeswoman Margaret Tutwiler indicated that Bonn’s position played into the hands of the Kremlin.

“The Soviets clearly want to denuclearize and undermine NATO’s flexible response and forward-defense strategies,” she said.

The short-range nuclear missiles are considered part of a flexible strategy designed to keep the Soviets off balance, the theory being that uncertainty whether NATO would use nuclear weapons deters a Soviet attack.

London reiterated its opposition to early talks. British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher warned Bonn on Tuesday not to break ranks with NATO allies over the issue.

“NATO strategy cannot be determined by any one country,” she replied to questions in Parliament. “Anything to undermine NATO will be highly damaging to the defense of liberty.”

But Genscher insisted, without naming countries, that Bonn was not alone in seeking early missile talks.

“There is very wide support among most of our continental allies for the German position,” he said. And he repeatedly stressed that Bonn’s position was consistent with existing NATO policy.

Thatcher is to fly to Bonn on Sunday to try to persuade Kohl to suspend his campaign for U.S.-Soviet negotiations on the issue.

Kohl is to present his position formally to the West German Parliament on Thursday.