Gorbachev Warns the West : Sees Peril in German NATO Role

President Mikhail S. Gorbachev said today that the Soviet Union will review its policies on European arms control and security negotiations if a reunited Germany joins NATO.

The Soviet leader told a news conference that Western leaders seem to be assuming that a unified Germany will join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, and said Moscow is very wary of that prospect.

“What should we do then about all the negotiating processes, including the European process, the CSCE process, the Vienna disarmament process? Then we must take a fresh look at whether we should pursue the same policy, whether we should base it on the same approaches,” Gorbachev told reporters in the Soviet Foreign Ministry press center.

The superpowers are involved in negotiations on reducing their nuclear and conventional forces and hope to reach some agreements during the summit between President Bush and Gorbachev in Washington from May 31 to June 3. CSCE refers to the 35-nation Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe, which deals with military security, economic cooperation and human rights.

Gorbachev’s remarks contained the Kremlin’s most dire warning yet about what steps it would take if a reunited Germany joins the Western military alliance. The Soviet preference, repeated by Gorbachev today, is that a reunited Germany belong to both NATO and the Warsaw Pact.

Gorbachev said discussion of German reunification took up 70% of his talks earlier in the day with French President Francois Mitterrand, who also appeared at the news conference.

The Bush Administration favors NATO membership for a reunited Germany.

The Soviet leader did not say his country would withdraw from the European negotiating processes, which cover reductions of troops and tanks on the Continent and other security issues, and did not specify how the Kremlin’s positions in those talks might change.

He justified the policy review by saying NATO would take similar action if the shoe were on the other foot.

“If a unified Germany should find itself part of the Warsaw Treaty, then I’m sure the Western countries would immediately get together to discuss how they should proceed further,” Gorbachev said.

Skewing a reunited Germany in either direction, he said, would upset the strategic balance in European negotiations.

“There is a question whether these processes would not become hostages to that kind of imbalance,” he said.

The Kremlin chief told reporters that he issued the warning “not to try to scare any of you so that you would begin to reflect right away what kind of trump card is being prepared by the Soviet Union,” but to appeal for a joint search for “the right solutions, (so) that we not weaken the positive processes in international relations.”