France Agrees to Join Talks on Curbing Spread of A-Weapons

France said Tuesday it will for the first time attend talks on curbing the spread of nuclear weapons.

The announcement was seen as a sign that Paris is reviewing a 22-year refusal to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

An observer will be sent to Geneva talks reviewing the treaty next month, the Foreign Ministry said.

France and China have refused to sign the treaty, which forbids the transfer of nuclear weapons technology to developing countries. The French are believed to have the world’s third-largest nuclear arsenal after the United States and the Soviet Union.

A ministry statement said that the French representative at the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) will attend a meeting to review the treaty in Geneva from Aug. 20 to Sept. 14. A ministry spokesman said that China will also send a delegate to the talks, the last before a meeting in 1995 to decide whether to prolong the accord, so far signed by 139 nations.

In 1968, France’s fiercely independent President Charles de Gaulle refused to join founder-members Britain, the United States and the Soviet Union in initialing the treaty.

It commits signatories to seek arms reductions and share peaceful nuclear technology with developing nations. But in practice it has been the industrialized world’s main weapon in preventing Third World countries from building nuclear bombs.

While France says it has respected the terms of the treaty since its 1970 implementation, Western diplomats said the move toward joining the accord took the country a step further toward ending Gaullist isolationism. France, however, recently restated its refusal to join NATO’s military command.

A few weeks ago, Paris introduced a more open policy on its nuclear tests in the South Pacific. After years of criticism from Pacific nations, President Francois Mitterrand ordered the Defense Ministry to formally announce each test, ending a policy of secrecy under which the French systematically refused to confirm or deny reports by local seismographers of nuclear explosions.