Warsaw Pact Fails to Find Agreement on Reforms : Alliance: Ending two days of talks, members conclude that there are ‘real possibilities’ that both NATO and the Warsaw Pact will become ‘non-confrontational.’

With faith among Eastern Europe’s newborn democracies clearly faltering, Warsaw Pact defense ministers wrapped up a crucial meeting on the alliance’s future Friday with no specific outline for expected reforms.

Soviet Defense Minister Dmitri T. Yazov, meanwhile, asserted that the Warsaw Pact cannot dissolve or loosen the ties binding its seven member-states in the face of NATO’s “military might.”

The Warsaw Pact declared last week following a meeting in Moscow that it would convert from its Kremlin-dominated structure to a political alliance of sovereign, equal states.

Meeting in the town of Strausberg, 20 miles east of Berlin, the ministers ended two days of talks about the alliance’s future, which has been cast into doubt by signs that Hungary, Czechoslovakia and Poland wish to leave.

A working paper on transforming the pact is expected to be ready by October, and the ministers indicated that they would probably meet in a special session at a later date. They said discussions this time touched on basic changes, the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Eastern Europe, and reductions in arms and troops.

The ministers “exchanged views on developments in the European strategic situation and made an assessment of 35 years of Warsaw Pact activities,” the statement said.

That included openly discussing controversial military actions by the Pact, such as the 1956 Soviet invasion of Hungary and the 1968 invasion of Czechoslovakia, for the first time.

Czechoslovak Defense Minister Miroslav Vacek said, “The countries which were involved in the 1968 invasion have apologized.”

The question of East Germany’s military status, if discussed, was not commented on publicly by the ministers in their statement.

The four victorious allies of World War II--the United States, the Soviet Union, France and Britain--continue to negotiate the issue as German unification looms, with the West insisting that a united Germany be a full-fledged member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and Moscow steadfastly resisting the demand. The West German and Soviet foreign ministers plan to resume talks on German unification Monday in Muenster, West Germany.

The East German defense and disarmament minister, Rainer Eppelmann, called both alliances “relics of the Cold War.”

Eppelmann also urged slower German unification, saying September, 1992, would be a “realistic date” that would allow time to create a bloc-free European security system.

The Soviet Union, he said, must not be “left standing at the door” of a united Europe.

“If the security aspects of a united Germany and a united Europe could take effect on the same day, we could save all this talk about interim solutions--who should belong to what alliance,” Eppelmann said.

The two Germanys already have agreed to merge their social, economic and monetary systems July 2, and all-German elections could take place as early as December.

In their closing statement, the defense ministers said there are “real possibilities” that both NATO and the Warsaw Pact will become “non-confrontational . . . and will be able to make a positive contribution to the development of pan-European security structures.”

At the same time, they pledged that Pact members will “continue to be led in their military policies by the defensive doctrine.”

That stance was echoed by Yazov, who told Tass that NATO remains a threat.

“We have no right to shut our eyes to the fact that NATO still exists and maintains all the attributes of its military might,” the Soviet defense minister said.

“Moreover, the provision of NATO armies with the newest armaments is being speeded up and its combat might is being built up,” Yazov said.

“Under these conditions, we cannot slacken our ties of alliance,” he said.