Soviets Ask U.S. to Join in Central America Arms Ban : Diplomacy: For the first time, Moscow declares its readiness to halt weapons transfers within the region.

The Soviet Union, responding to complaints by President Bush at the Malta summit, Friday proposed a superpower agreement ending all arms shipments to Central America and, for the first time, all such shipments within the region.

Eduard A. Shevardnadze, the Soviet foreign minister, said the Soviet Union agreed with the United States that the countries of Central America are now so heavily armed that none feels secure and that this makes it difficult to reach political settlements of the multiple conflicts there.

“This problem can apparently be solved by stopping all arms shipments to the region and all intra-regional transfers of armaments as well,” Shevardnadze told the Spanish news agency EFE in an interview made public by Tass, the official Soviet news agency.

“Since there are excessive quantities of arms in Central America today, we must regard their reduction to the level of reasonable sufficiency as an important political and practical task facing the nations of that region.”

Although Moscow had previously proposed an agreement with Washington halting Soviet and U.S. arms shipments to the area, Shevardnadze took it significantly further, declaring for the first time Moscow’s willingness to bring an end to arms transfers within the region as well as from outside.

In the meeting at Malta last weekend with President Mikhail S. Gorbachev, Bush made Central America a major issue, pressing the Soviet leader hard to prove his commitment to better Soviet-American relations and the peaceful resolution of regional conflicts by ensuring an end to arms shipments to the Salvadoran rebels.

“I wish to stress that the Malta talks have allowed us to clarify again both the region’s problems and the possible ways of solving them,” Shevardnadze said, emphasizing Soviet willingness to cooperate with the United States in bringing peace to Central America.

“Tranquillity is bound to be restored in Central America primarily through the efforts of its peoples. This would meet the interests not only of Central America but of our whole planet, which is on the threshold of a new and peaceful period of its history.”

The United States has complained repeatedly that although the Soviet Union suspended its arms shipments to Nicaragua last January, its Warsaw Pact allies have stepped up supplies to Cuba and Nicaragua, that Cuba has continued to arm Nicaragua and that Cuba and Nicaragua together are arming leftist insurgents in El Salvador and perhaps elsewhere in the region.

The Soviet proposal also elaborated on Moscow’s proposal, first made by Shevardnadze on a trip to the region in October, to help negotiate substantial reductions in the arsenals of Central American countries as part of the overall peace process there.

“As for the Soviet Union, we are prepared to help elaborate corresponding criteria for reasonable sufficiency,” he said. “Furthermore, the Soviet Union would be prepared to assume, jointly with the United States, the role of guarantor of an agreement drawn up for this purpose.”

The agreement envisioned by Shevardnadze would also be subject to verification by inspectors from the United Nations and the Organization of American States.

Shevardnadze said he had been in contact with Secretary of State James A. Baker III since last weekend’s summit meeting, adding: “This means that the dialogue is continuing. It is not easy, but businesslike, and I believe that it has certain constructive elements to it.”

He chided the United States for its reduced but continuing commitment to Nicaragua’s anti-Marxist Contra guerrillas. He described the Contras as “a longstanding source of military tension in Central America.”

As one of the remaining regional conflicts that threaten Soviet hopes for steady reduction of East-West tension and the “de-ideologization” of international relations, Central America has become a new foreign policy focus for Moscow, and Shevardnadze expressed Soviet support for the efforts now under way to negotiate settlements in Nicaragua and El Salvador.

Underscoring the Soviet commitment to establishing peace in the region, he said Moscow is willing to recognize as legitimate those governments, notably that of President Alfredo Cristiani in El Salvador, with which it has no diplomatic relations at present.

“Our own contribution to this cause,” he said, “includes not only statements, not only the discontinuation of our arms deliveries to the region, but also our readiness to develop contacts with all the countries of that region, up to the establishment of diplomatic relations with states with which we yet have no such relations.”

He said the Soviet Union has been in contact with El Salvador, as well as neighboring Honduras and Guatemala, in an effort to reduce tension after the recent military offensive in the Salvadoran capital city by Marxist guerrillas of the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front.

Shevardnadze said he regrets the increased violence in El Salvador at a time when peace moves are under way.

“The history of the conflict in that country is well known,” he commented. “Underlying socio-economic problems were aggravated by numerous gross violations of human rights. The armed struggle that came as a reaction to them entailed clashes and violence.

“But there is only one way out of this critical situation--political dialogue. The principal role belongs, of course, to the Salvadorans. Only a permanent dialogue in conditions of a cease-fire and scrupulous observance of human rights will finally give them a chance to settle their problems. Practically no one doubts today that there is a stalemate situation in the country. Any attempts of the belligerents to achieve military superiority, let alone victory, are futile.”

Discussing the situation in Nicaragua, Shevardnadze praised the Sandinista government for its commitment to hold elections under international observation as an important step toward ensuring peace in that country.

“We believe,” he said, “that the creation of appropriate conditions for such elections is a major factor contributing to a settlement. It is particularly important now not to spoil the atmosphere by mistrust and mutual accusations.”

In a formal statement, the Soviet government welcomed the meeting, scheduled for Sunday and Monday in Costa Rica, of the presidents of Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua.

The statement outlined as priorities for peace in the region the holding of “free and democratic elections in Nicaragua,” the disbanding of the Contras and the conclusion of the civil war in El Salvador.

“For the attainment of these objectives,” it said, “it is necessary for outlying states (outside the region) to contribute to the settlement process, or at least not to hamper it.”