Walesa Says He Wants to Meet With Gorbachev Immediately

Lech Walesa, leader of the East Bloc’s first legal democratic opposition in more than 40 years, said Thursday that he wants an immediate meeting with Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev.

“I would go immediately,” he said in a newspaper interview one day after Gorbachev said in Paris that he saw no obstacle to a meeting.

Walesa did not explain why he wants to meet Gorbachev in the brief interview with the Solidarity newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza. But he has indicated for months that he wants to reassure the Soviet Union about Poland’s radical democratic reforms.

“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,” the Solidarity leader said in April.

Kremlin Favors Visit

Senior Solidarity sources say that the Kremlin has been in favor of a Walesa visit for some time but that it has been delayed by leaders of the Polish Communist Party.

His remarks in April appeared designed to reassure Moscow following a government-Solidarity pact on legalizing the free trade union and allowing the opposition into Parliament.

Next Tuesday, Walesa will host a lunch at his home for President Bush, who will be visiting Poland to support democratic change in the country.

Walesa’s latest proposal came immediately after Solidarity took its seats in Parliament and as it was trying to block the election of Communist leader Gen. Wojciech Jaruzelski as president while signaling its interest in forming a government.

Jaruzelski on Thursday repeated his refusal to run despite intense pressure from his party and reports from party sources that all but one of the 173 Communist bloc parliamentary deputies had now endorsed his candidacy.

A surprise statement by the official news agency PAP published Thursday said it was authorized to announce that “no new facts or circumstances have taken place that could cause Wojciech Jaruzelski to change his stand on this issue.”

Walesa simultaneously repeated his own interest in the presidency, even though he has said he is not running.

“I still uphold that,” he told Gazeta Wyborcza. “But you know, there are some things that are outside our control. So there is no absolute certainty that something will not change at the last moment.”