‘Political Cliches’ Marked Bush Talk, Shevardnadze Says

Foreign Minister Eduard A. Shevardnadze accused the U.S. Administration of conducting a foreign policy of “empty political cliches” in a blunt assessment Saturday of President Bush’s policy-setting address May 12.

While not responding directly to Bush’s proposal for an “open skies” policy permitting unarmed surveillance flights over the superpowers, Shevardnadze said much of Bush’s speech appeared to indicate a step backward for superpower relations.

“It surprised me by its tone, and I would even say by its somewhat old-style ideological tinge and sometimes edifying emphasis,” Shevardnadze told the Communist Party newspaper Pravda in an interview carried by the Tass news agency.

“It seemed to us that our political dialogue had already moved to a different category and removed the blinkers of ideological rhetoric and that we could conduct it without empty political cliches,” the foreign minister said.