Bulgarian Leadership Agrees to Start Talks With Foes After Warning Strike

Communist leaders here agreed Wednesday to start immediate talks with opposition groups after thousands of workers staged a two-hour warning strike and threatened a full-scale walkout today.

The ruling Politburo had announced Tuesday that it would open a dialogue with opposition groups early in 1990 but did not set a date.

Opposition activists said doctors, miners, factory and railway workers were among those joining Wednesday’s strike.

Politburo member Andrei Lukanov and Petar Beron, secretary of the Union of Democratic Forces opposition group, agreed to start talks today on opening a round-table dialogue next week, activist Konstantin Trenchev said.

New leader Petar Mladenov, who replaced disgraced veteran Todor Zhivkov last month, has been anxious to prove his willingness to institute reforms amid a wave of street demonstrations calling for widespread change.

The Communist Party has said it will renounce its leading role in government and has promised free elections, but many of Bulgaria’s burgeoning opposition groups say these pledges do not go far enough.

Round-table talks, apparently modeled on similar discussions in other reform-minded East Bloc states, are due to begin next week, Trenchev said. They are to be open and names of participants are to be made public.