Soviets Will Be Part of New Europe, U.S. Vows : Diplomacy: Baker and other NATO foreign ministers move to reassure Moscow on the German unification issue.

Secretary of State James A. Baker III promised the Soviet Union on Thursday that it “will not be left out of the new Europe.”

Baker and other foreign ministers of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, meeting at this cold and wind-swept Scottish seaside resort, appeared to make a concerted effort to reassure Moscow that a unifed Germany in NATO will not threaten Soviet security.

“NATO can not only prevent war but can also build peace,” said Baker. “And the way to build peace is to reassure the Central and Eastern Europeans and the Soviets that they will not be left out of the new Europe.”

Baker suggested that the 16-member North Atlantic Treaty Organization could “reach out to all of Europe, including neutral and nonaligned nations.”

Baker’s remarks were delivered to the closed NATO meeting but were made public later by the State Department.

His comments were an implied response to a suggestion from Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev at the Washington summit that a formal NATO-Warsaw Pact agreement might soften Soviet objections to NATO membership for a reunified Germany.

A senior State Department official said later that some of the NATO foreign ministers are intrigued by Gorbachev’s proposal while others are “more cautious because they are concerned about an agreement with a pact that is experiencing its own difficulties.”

Italian Foreign Minister Gianni de Michaelis reported that Baker and West German Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher are optimistic that “the role of a united Germany in NATO will not be a problem in negotiations with the Soviet Union.”

He added, “The question is not whether a united Germany will belong to NATO but to what kind of NATO a united Germany will belong.”

Nevertheless, U.S. officials were disconcerted by news agency reports from Moscow that Gorbachev, addressing a Warsaw Pact summit meeting, revived an earlier Soviet suggestion that Germany should belong to both blocs. The U.S. officials said the Soviets had seemed to have abandoned that idea.

A senior U.S. official said that the climate for German unification seems to be improved as a result of the summit and Baker’s meeting with Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard A. Shevardnadze in Copenhagen on Tuesday, but “the Soviets seem to move back and forth of some of these issues.”

Baker said the West should meet Moscow’s legitimate security concerns, but he warned that the Soviets could isolate themselves from the rest of the world if they continue to resist the idea of German unification.

“In this event, their approach would put them in conflict with most European governments,” he said.

NATO Secretary General Manfred Woerner, in opening the two-day session designed to prepare for the NATO summit next month, declared that a united Germany firmly anchored in NATO would aid the Soviet Union.

“In such circumstances,” said Woerner, a former West German defense minister, “the Soviet Union has everything to gain: peace, security, stability and genuine partnership.”

British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, in a brief appearance before flying to Moscow to visit Gorbachev, called for more emphasis on NATO’s political role to make it “easier for the Soviet Union to come to terms with NATO’s continued existence and German membership.”

Thatcher told the ministers:

“The message I shall take is that NATO flourishes and will continue to do so, not as an alliance against anyone . . . but as an alliance for freedom, justice and democracy, values which are now ever more widely accepted across Europe.”

Genscher also pressed the theme that the Soviet Union should not be allowed to feel isolated.

“In all aspects,” he said, “the legitimate security interests of the Soviet Union must be respected.”

Toward that end, he said, the West German and East German parliaments on June 21 will make separate declarations based on the same text, recognizing the present border with Poland.

The hedging on the part of West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl earlier this year to declare the postwar border final was a source of anxiety to the Poles and a concern to the Soviets. Kohl later declared that the border was not subject to change.

In her speech, Thatcher said that NATO’s defense will continue to “require nuclear weapons in Europe, which will be kept up-to-date.”

Genscher’s aides, however, emphasized his desire to cut down on the kinds and number of nuclear weapons based in Europe--and privately indicated they would not welcome any new air-launched missiles that the Americans wish to deploy at bases in West Germany.

U.S. officials said the alliance will not decide on whether to deploy such missiles until 1992.

However, in his statement to the meeting, Baker said, “We want to share the nuclear risk as widely among the alliance as possible.”

U.S. officials said privately that the comment was an oblique reference to keeping at least some nuclear weapons in Germany.