Removal of Soviet Subs in Baltic Vowed : Disarmament: Gorbachev proposes to make the region a nuclear-free zone.

Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev pledged today to pull out all Soviet Golf-class nuclear submarines from the Baltic Sea by 1991 and proposed an East-West agreement to make the region a nuclear-free zone.

Gorbachev, in a speech on the second day of a state visit to Finland, also announced that all Soviet tactical nuclear missiles in the northwest of his country had been redeployed to put targets in Northern Europe out of their range.

“In the Baltic Sea area, the Soviet Union is about to proceed unilaterally to eliminate certain classes of sea-launched nuclear weapons,” the Soviet leader said.

“As has been reported, the Soviet Union started by removing from operational status two Golf-class submarines, and before the end of 1990 it will destroy the four remaining submarines of the same class,” he said.

Gorbachev said the submarines’ nuclear weapons will also be destroyed and there were no plans for their replacement.

“We are prepared to come to an agreement with all the nuclear powers and the Baltic states on effective guarantees for the nuclear-free status of the Baltic Sea,” he said.

The Soviet leader was speaking in Finlandia Hall, where the 1975 European Security and Cooperation agreement was signed by then-Soviet leader Leonid I. Brezhnev and President Gerald R. Ford.

Gorbachev said the Soviet Union had taken a number of unilateral steps in the last two years in support of Finnish proposals to remove all nuclear weapons from Northern Europe.

“As of now, we have no medium- or shorter-range missiles on operational status in areas adjacent to the north of Europe. Soviet tactical nuclear systems are now deployed in areas from which they cannot reach Northern Europe from any given site in Soviet territory,” he said.

Along with his disarmament proposals, the Kremlin chief also called for greater economic cooperation with the West and in particular with the European Community and the European Free Trade Assn.

“The fact that the various integration groups are moving ahead at a different pace need not stand in the way of our quest for common ground, especially since we already have quite a few problems in common,” Gorbachev said.

He said one way of achieving such cooperation would be through a tripartite European Commission of experts from the European Community, the European Free Trade Assn. and the Eastern trade bloc, Comecon, to discuss compatibility and the harmonization of economic mechanisms.

On bilateral relations, which he described as “the main purpose” of his visit to Finland, Gorbachev expressed satisfaction with developments since the friendship and cooperation treaty was signed.