U.S.-Soviet Afghan Talks Planned

U.S. and Soviet experts will meet in Washington in the next few weeks to try to resolve remaining differences over a settlement of the Afghanistan conflict, a senior U.S. official said Saturday.

The decision was reached during more than two hours of talks Friday night in East Berlin between Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard A. Shevardnadze and Secretary of State James A. Baker III after a meeting on Germany’s future.

Afghanistan is one of only a few regional conflicts that remain a source of superpower friction.

Moscow backs the regime of Najibullah while the United States helps fund and supply the moujahedeen , Muslim resistance fighters.

Moscow, which invaded Afghanistan in 1979, withdrew its troops in February, 1989, as part of a U.N.-mediated accord. But the conflict has dragged on with no military victory by either side considered likely.