Kohl Reaffirms NATO Rift, Asks Missile Talks

Chancellor Helmut Kohl reaffirmed West Germany’s sharp departure from Atlantic Alliance policy Thursday and called for early talks with the Warsaw Pact nations on reducing East-West levels of short-range nuclear weapons.

In a speech to Parliament, Kohl also urged Moscow to make drastic reductions in the number of its short-range missile launchers, which he said outnumber those of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization by 14 to 1. The NATO launchers of this type are based in West Germany.

Little Likelihood

NATO sources said there is little likelihood that the United States and Britain will go along with Kohl’s call for early talks on short-range weapons--those with a range of under 300 miles. And they criticized him for raising the sensitive issue before the NATO summit conference scheduled for May 29-30.

“There is a real dispute here,” a senior NATO official said, “and it doesn’t look as if it will be resolved by the summit.”

In Washington, State Department spokeswoman Margaret Tutwiler said Kohl’s speech did not go beyond the arguments presented earlier this week when Bonn’s Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher and Defense Minister Gerhard Stoltenberg visited the United States. At that time, Secretary of State James A. Baker III flatly rejected the West German appeal for early negotiations over short-range systems.

“The Soviets clearly want to denuclearize and undermine NATO’s flexible response and forward strategies,” Tutwiler said. “As long as the Soviets retain their current overwhelming preponderance of conventional forces, our forward defense strategy depends on a flexible response capability, including nuclear forces.”

Ground-launched nuclear missiles with ranges between 300 and 3,400 miles were banned under the U.S.-Soviet Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty.

Kohl’s speech to Parliament was aimed at restoring the image of his coalition government, which has been damaged by the results of recent local elections in West Berlin, Frankfurt and the state of Hesse. Kohl’s popularity with the voters has declined sharply, according to opinion polls.

Nuclear missiles are unpopular in West Germany, which is likely to be the main battleground in any fighting between NATO-Warsaw Pact troops. Kohl said his government has agreed to put off a decision on deploying a successor to the allies’ short-range Lance missiles until 1992, well after the West German elections scheduled for December of 1990.

Then, Kohl said, NATO can decide “whether it is necessary to introduce a follow-on system to Lance into the alliance in 1996, and hence on the production and deployment of such a system.”

In any event, he said, the development of a Lance successor is purely “a national American decision.”

U.S. congressmen have said they want a commitment by the West Germans to deploy the Lance successor before they approve funds for development and production.

Kohl also said that NATO’s “comprehensive concept” report on future strategy, due to be issued at the May conference, should recommend negotiations with the Warsaw Pact powers that would seek “radically lower levels” of nuclear artillery on both sides of the East German-West German border.

‘Fundamental Interest’

“It is our firm intention,” he said, “to reach consensus at the NATO summit conference on all these questions of defense policy, disarmament and arms control. It is in our fundamental interest to maintain the cohesion of the Atlantic Alliance and its capacity to act.”

Kohl noted that he will be meeting Sunday with Britain’s Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and that he will discuss the question with her, as well as with Italy’s Prime Minister Ciriaco de Mita on Tuesday.

Thatcher has been NATO’s most vociferous critic of Kohl’s policy reversal on delaying a decision on modernizing short-range nuclear weapons, and of his more recent switch in calling for talks with Moscow on these weapons.

In Rome on Thursday, Italian Foreign Minister Giulio Andreotti said that the Italian government sides with West Germany on the missile issue. “We fully understand the specific sensibilities of West Germany regarding this type of weapon,” he said in remarks to the Italian Senate.

Andreotti said, however, that Italy does not believe the question is urgent, saying that NATO’s paramount priority must be the reduction of the Warsaw Pact’s superiority conventional forces.

Foreign Minister Genscher made a successful one-day trip to Denmark on Wednesday to elicit that government’s support for negotiations with Moscow. And Danish Foreign Minister Uffe Ellemann-Jensen said at a news conference that Norwegian Foreign Minister Thorvald Stoltenberg had told him in a telephone conversation Wednesday that Oslo’s position is “very similar” to West Germany’s.

The West Germans thus have the Danes and the Norwegians aligned with them, as well as Belgium, Spain, Greece and Italy. Thatcher is scheduled to discuss the issue with the Italian and Dutch prime ministers in an effort to enlist them to the U.S.-British position.

Kohl justified his policy on the missile question by saying that in 1987 and 1988, in Soviet-American negotiations on intermediate-range weapons, Bonn “demanded” talks on short-range weapons, and his view was supported by President Reagan.

“Everyone will understand,” he said, “why (West Germany) is adopting this position. On account of the range of short-range systems, (West Germany) is more strongly affected than the other members of the alliance. I therefore consider it natural that our friends show the same understanding for our interests as we have shown for their interests on many occasions.”

Kohl said that the new openness in the Soviet Union and its East Bloc allies offers new opportunities for East-West cooperation. And his government, he said, “is determined to use every chance that leads to more understanding and cooperation and thus stabilizes peace and ensures security in Europe.”

He disclosed that when Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev visits Bonn in June, the two will sign agreements on West German investment in the Soviet Union.