Troop Agreement Removes Arms Pact Obstacle--Bush

President Bush today called Soviet acceptance of his troop cut proposal for Europe “an important breakthrough” that removes a major obstacle to a conventional arms treaty.

Bush, before signing a Panama aid bill, praised Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev for accepting his plan to allow the U.S. and Soviet armies to keep 195,000 troops each in Central Europe, with the United States allowed to station 30,000 more troops in Britain, Italy, Turkey, Greece and Spain.

“This is an important breakthrough which removes a major obstacle to the early conclusion of a CFE (conventional forces in Europe) treaty, and it also established the principle that U.S. forces in Europe are not to be treated as equivalent to Soviet forces in Eastern Europe,” said Bush.

He also hailed a separate agreement to speed German reunification. The four powers that defeated Hitler in World War II have agreed to meet with leaders of the two Germanys to lay the groundwork for unification.

Bush, who had said Monday that it was too early for a four powers’ meeting on the future of Germany, acknowledged he was caught by surprise at the speed at which the German unification question has moved forward.

Secretary of State James A. Baker III, who helped negotiate the latest breakthroughs in meetings in Ottawa with foreign secretaries from both NATO and Warsaw Pact nations, was at the President’s side.

“We and our German allies are in full accord,” Bush said. “Things move quite fast there.”

The foreign ministers of the two German states will meet with the foreign ministers of the four powers--the United States, Great Britain, France and the Soviet Union--”to discuss the external aspects of the establishment of German unity,” Bush said.

“This brings us a step closer to realizing the longstanding goal of German unity,” said Bush, who has insisted that a united Germany must belong to NATO.