U.S. and Soviets in Accord on Cutting Arms in Europe : Military: The way is open for a November summit to sign an agreement on conventional forces.

U.S. and Soviet arms negotiators meeting in New York have reached agreement on virtually all outstanding issues on slashing conventional forces in Europe, from the Atlantic to the Ural Mountains, U.S. officials said Tuesday.

The settlement opens the way for the Europe-wide summit Nov. 19-21 to sign a treaty that will essentially codify the new post-Cold War political shape of the Continent.

It will reduce Warsaw Pact weapons by 60%, eliminating more than 100,000 weapons, including tanks, personnel carriers and helicopters. NATO weapons will be reduced by 10%, eliminating about 15,000 weapons.

The treaty also limits the strength of the combined Germanys to 370,000 men, down from about 600,000 just a year ago, and will legitimize the withdrawal of some U.S. forces from Western Europe. However, no ceilings on U.S. or Soviet forces currently are part of the treaty.

No issues of principle remain outstanding in the CFE talks, officials said, as diplomats from the two sides hammered out a series of compromises on key obstacles. Most of the problems had been raised by Moscow within the last six months as its Warsaw Pact buffer states successfully demanded the removal of Soviet troops from their territory.

When Secretary of State James A. Baker III and Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard A. Shevardnadze meet again today, they are expected to wrap up several remaining CFE issues, such as the allocation of annual on-site inspections among different countries in the alliances.

“I think we have made some progress,” Baker told a news conference in New York. “We have not closed the issue out.”

The two men may also take up the other major weapons negotiation under way, the strategic arms reduction talks, or START. But the Soviets have indicated that little progress is likely until Shevardnadze visits Washington in November, officials said.

Depending on progress then, a date would be discussed for a U.S.-Soviet summit in Moscow in early 1991 at which President Bush and Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev would sign the START agreement.

The political dynamics of the situation, including German reunification, seemed to drive negotiators toward agreement. All participants want the CFE treaty, both for itself and to ensure that the 34-nation Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE) summit will convene on schedule Nov. 19 in Paris. Both Bush and Gorbachev have said the summit could not be held without a conventional arms treaty.

“Pressure for a CFE deal came from a number of directions,” according to Jack Mendelsohn, deputy director of the private Arms Control Assn. “Washington and Moscow want to limit each other’s forces, but a lot of countries also want to make sure that the unrolling of events led by German unification continue to increase their security, not reduce it.”

Three major CFE issues were largely settled in New York, officials said:

Single-nation limits. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization had proposed that no one nation could have more than 60% of the weapons in each category that was allotted to its alliance. For example, the Soviets and the United States could have no more than 60% of the 1,900 helicopters permitted for the Warsaw Bloc and NATO, respectively. The Soviet-led Warsaw Pact had proposed an 80% limit.

The compromise permits one country to have 67% of its alliance’s weapons and provides some flexibility. Its “holdings” in one category can be slightly greater if weapons in another category are slightly smaller. For example, the Soviets and the United States could have more helicopters if their artillery holdings were reduced accordingly.

Naval aircraft. The Soviet Union will attach a “politically binding” statement to the CFE treaty pledging that its land-based naval aircraft, which could be used to attack NATO warships, will be limited to about 200 Backfire medium-range bombers and about 100 other airplanes. This solution eliminates the final matter of principle between the two sides.

NATO insisted on limiting these Soviet naval aircraft, but the Soviets in exchange wanted to limit U.S. carrier-based aircraft. The United States flatly refused to include any naval weapons. In the end, no limits are put on the U.S. Navy, but the Soviet naval aircraft will not be subject to on-site inspection.

Sub-zones. Efforts were made to limit weapons not only for each side, but within specific zones. For example, NATO sought to limit the Soviets in the Central Europe zone to prevent massing for a surprise attack on Germany. But recently, NATO states on the flanks--Norway in the north and Turkey in the south--expressed fear that the Soviets would transfer those Central European forces closer to their areas. The Soviets, for their part, called for much lower ceilings in the central zone in an effort to curb NATO.

How sub-zone differences were ironed out is not known here, but officials indicated that the final outstanding question deals with numbers--how many weapons can be stored in the regions--rather than principle.

Still unsettled are issues dealing with ceilings on combat aircraft and inspection visits. On aircraft, the two sides are moving to split the difference in their positions, officials said, suggesting that a ceiling will be set at about 5,700 attack aircraft plus interceptors.

The verification problem deals with how the roughly 600 annual inspections permitted each alliance will be allocated among member nations. NATO wants to divide them according to square miles of territory, which would mean most of its inspections would occur in the Soviet Union. The Soviets want them apportioned by nation, thereby limiting how many inspections would fall upon them.

Meanwhile, President Bush met briefly in Washington on Tuesday with Gen. Mikhail Moiseyev, first deputy minister of defense and chief of the Soviet general staff, at the start of a six-day military-to-military exchange visit to the United States.

Staff writer Norman Kempster, in New York, contributed to this report.