Moscow Agrees to Inspections of Chemical Arms Before Treaty OK

The Soviet Union has accepted a U.S. proposal that chemical-weapons production and storage sites be inspected before the completion of a treaty banning the weapons worldwide, U.S. officials said Wednesday.

The decision was conveyed to Secretary of State James A. Baker III in Paris last weekend by Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard A. Shevardnadze, along with a Soviet request that the Bush Administration develop new ideas for accelerating multilateral negotiations on the treaty, the officials said.

The Soviets said in a memorandum handed to Baker that they agree with a U.S. proposal that the inspections be used to confirm data on existing arsenals that will be exchanged during the negotiations. They also agreed to renew private U.S.-Soviet discussions on the weapons this month in Geneva, the officials said.

The move is seen as another sign that the Soviet Union has adopted a new overall approach toward arms inspections, which it previously said could only be conducted according to treaties that have been signed and ratified. Last month, a senior Soviet official told the Washington Post that Moscow would also accept advance inspections of strategic weapons facilities, initially proposed by the United States.

Advance inspections could help resolve a longstanding dispute over the size of the Soviet chemical-weapons arsenal. Soviet officials have stated that it is roughly 50,000 tons, while Western estimates are much higher.

Both sides have conducted practice inspections at their own facilities, using their own personnel.

The Soviet decision comes on the heels of a negotiating session in which the two sides also made progress on a proposed schedule for destroying existing poison gas weapons. But many other issues remain unresolved, and U.S. officials have predicted that a treaty will not be completed for at least a year.