KGB Plans to Cut Restricted Zones on Soviet Border by 90%

The KGB plans to cut the restricted border zones it guards to one-tenth of their current size and take down the barbed wire in many areas, officials of the Soviet security agency told a Soviet legislative committee Friday.

Border-crossing procedures will also be simplified, Tass said in a report on a session of the new committee that oversees the KGB and the Defense Ministry.

Vladimir A. Kryuchkov, head of the KGB, told the panel there was no reason to maintain such a large border zone, the news agency said. It did not specify the total area of the zone that the 200,000 border guards protect now, or how it will be further reduced.

KGB deputy chief Vadim A. Matrosov said that the Soviet Union’s improving relations with most of its neighbors, including China, Iran, Turkey and Norway, has led to reduced tension on its border.

In some places along the Chinese frontier, the restricted zone is hundreds of miles wide. Even along the border with its Warsaw Pact allies, the Soviet Union has strung barbed wire. Foreigners are barred from a 16-mile strip along the Soviet border with Norway, Finland, Iran, Turkey and Afghanistan.