U.S., Soviets Iron Out Details of European Arms Pact : Military: An ‘agreement in principle’ is reached on conventional weapons. As a bonus, progress is made on slashing long-range nuclear arms.

Secretary of State James A. Baker III and Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard A. Shevardnadze announced an “agreement in principle” Wednesday on a treaty slashing the numbers of tanks, artillery and other conventional weapons in Europe.

The agreement still needs the approval of Washington’s 15 North Atlantic Treaty Organization allies and Moscow’s five remaining Warsaw Pact allies, but Baker said he hopes the treaty will be ready for signature next month at a European summit meeting in Paris.

Baker and Shevardnadze refused to divulge details of the agreement in advance of presentation to allied nations. But Baker said the pact will result in the destruction of “a significant amount of armaments.”

U.S. officials have said that the emerging treaty will reduce Warsaw Pact weaponry by about 60%, eliminating more than 100,000 weapons, including more than 40,000 tanks. It will reduce NATO’s substantially smaller arsenal by about 10%, or 15,000 weapons.

The Conventional Forces in Europe talks, which began in Vienna on March 8, 1989, are technically between the member nations of the rival military alliances. However, it is inconceivable that either NATO or the Warsaw Pact would reject an agreement that was acceptable to both Moscow and Washington.

When the negotiations began last year, the Warsaw Pact consisted of the Soviet Union and six Communist-governed nations that followed Moscow’s lead in foreign policy and military planning. Now, the size of the pact has shrunk with the disappearance of East Germany. Of the remaining nations, three--Hungary, Czechoslovakia and Poland--have jettisoned communism completely and two--Bulgaria and Romania--have ousted old-line Communist dictators.

“So far as U.S.-Soviet discussions are concerned, we have been able to reach mutual understanding on all major issues,” Shevardnadze said. “I am sure our allies will be able to agree with us.”

Baker and Shevardnadze spent most of their six-hour meeting at the headquarters of the Soviet U.N. Mission on completing the conventional weapons talks. However, Shevardnadze said they also made “substantial progress” toward a new agreement slashing the superpower arsenals of long-range nuclear weapons.

Baker flew back to Washington late Wednesday but he said he might return to New York on Friday to continue talks on a strategic arms reduction treaty before Shevardnadze returns to Moscow this weekend. President Bush and Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev have set a goal of completing the nuclear weapons treaty before the end of this year.

But Baker said the two sides are on a “very short time leash” concerning the conventional weapons talks. The United States has said that it will not attend the Conference on Security and Cooperation summit meeting, scheduled for Paris on Nov. 19-21, unless a conventional arms pact is ready to be signed there.

Most of the most significant issues in the conventional arms talks were settled earlier. For instance, the two sides agreed to limit the army of reunified Germany to 370,000 men, down from 600,000 just a year ago.

The pact will not impose manpower limits on any other armies, because the United States and the Soviet Union were unable to agree on ceilings for U.S. troops after the Soviets agreed, in talks with their allies, to withdraw all Soviet soldiers from Eastern Europe within four years.

Baker said it is still possible that glitches in the formal drafting process could upset the agreement, but he said that was unlikely. Shevardnadze said he and Baker agreed to all remaining matters relating to aircraft, which had been the final sticking point, with the exception of a minor issue relating to helicopters. He predicted that lower-level negotiators would straighten out that problem without requiring additional action by the foreign ministers.

“We agreed that the question of (Soviet) land-based naval aircraft, which was one of the real sticking points, would be handled by a politically binding declaration” outside of the formal language of the treaty, Baker said.

Although neither Baker nor Shevardnadze would discuss details of the final negotiations, Shevardnadze said with a smile: “Of course, the Soviet Union made all of the main concessions.”