U.S.-Soviet Arms Talks Reported Stalled : Superpowers: Key issues are left unresolved as Baker meets with Gorbachev, Shevardnadze before heading for Syria.

Although President Bush and Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev have vowed to complete two major arms control agreements this year, the pace of negotiations appears to have stalled.

Secretary of State James A. Baker III met for an hour with Gorbachev and for two hours with Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard A. Shevardnadze on Thursday without coming to grips with either strategic arms reduction or conventional forces in Europe.

Asked if any progress was made on either arms control proposal, a senior State Department official said: “Not really,” adding that the subject was given no more than superficial treatment.

But a Soviet diplomat, briefing the official Tass news agency, gave a different account of the meetings, saying that arms control had been their focus. The United States and the Soviet Union alike were seeking “fresh approaches” in both sets of arms negotiations, he said.

“The point at issue is not concessions but a reasonable combination of the interests of both sides, “ the unidentified Soviet diplomat said.

Another senior American official said later that the United States and the Soviet Union had reached a tacit understanding last month, previously unannounced, that the pending negotiations over conventional forces in Europe will not try to fix a ceiling on U.S. and Soviet troop levels on the Continent.

The United States and the Soviet Union agreed Feb. 13 in Ottawa to set a limit of 195,000 Soviet and 225,000 American troops in Europe. But Baker acknowledged earlier this week that the Ottawa agreement was outmoded because the Soviet Union has already agreed in separate talks with West Germany, Hungary and Czechoslovakia to withdraw all of its troops from Europe by the end of 1994.

The senior U.S. official said the Soviet Union “took the issue off the table” rather than agree to put into the treaty a relatively high force level in Central Europe for the United States at a time Moscow would have none.

The understanding on troop levels eliminated one potential roadblock to completion of the treaty in time for it to be signed in November at a proposed European summit conference in Paris.

The other major outstanding issue is the reduction in the warplanes deployed in the region, but the Soviet diplomat indicated that this issue will probably be deferred to a later round of negotiations.

Gorbachev, talking with reporters before his meeting with Baker, said that another superpower summit is possible this year.

Baker left Moscow late Thursday for Damascus, where he will confer today with Syrian President Hafez Assad about the Persian Gulf crisis.

Although the United States has long branded Syria a supporter of international terrorism, the two nations are on the same side in the gulf. Assad, long a bitter enemy of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, contributed several dozen troops to the multinational force in Saudi Arabia.

Baker refused to talk to reporters aboard his aircraft on the flight from Moscow to Damascus. But he issued a statement expressing “deep concern” over a statement by the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the Iranian spiritual leader, calling for a holy war against the U.S. military presence in the region.

Nevertheless, Baker said he had seen no evidence that Iran is violating the U.N.-imposed trade embargo against Iraq.

The State Department official said Baker discussed the gulf crisis with both Gorbachev and Shevardnadze, including possible new actions by the United Nations to enforce the sanctions. But no decisions were reached.

Baker has suggested steps such as mounting an air blockade or imposing sanctions on embargo-breaking nations to tighten the U.N. embargo of Iraq, the official said.