U.S., Soviets Postpone Summit

President Bush and Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev today postponed the Feb. 11-13 summit in Moscow “by mutual agreement,” citing the war in the Persian Gulf and problems with a nuclear arms treaty.

Secretary of State James A. Baker III and Soviet Foreign Minister Alexander A. Bessmertnykh announced the summit delay after the Soviet minister emerged from an Oval Office meeting with Bush.

They said the summit will be rescheduled in Moscow at “a later date in the first half of this year.”

“The Gulf War makes it inappropriate for President Bush to be away from Washington. In addition, work on the START (Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty) will require some additional time,” they said in a statement that Bessmertnykh read in Russian and Baker followed in English.

Asked if the Soviet crackdown on the Baltics figured in the postponement, Baker said, “I think the statement speaks for itself.” The joint statement did not mention the Baltics.

Pressed for an answer, Baker said, “The question of the Baltics was discussed at quite some length,” both in Baker’s talks with Bessmertnykh and in Bush’s meeting with the foreign minister.

Asked if the Soviet Union was disappointed, Bessmertnykh said, “It was a mutual decision, so there is no disappointment.”

The delay had been expected. Even before the outbreak of the war against Iraq, the White House had said the Moscow summit was up in the air.

Bush had come under increasing pressure from Congress not to go to Moscow in the wake of the Kremlin’s crackdown in the Baltics, where 21 people have died in clashes with the Red Army in the past two weeks.

Standing at Baker’s side on the White House driveway, Bessmertnykh said, “We have decided, the two of us, to postpone it.”

Baker added, “Both presidents look forward to setting an exact summit date as soon as is feasible.”

The centerpiece of the planned summit is a proposed strategic arms reduction or START treaty to reduce the two superpowers’ long-range nuclear weapons by roughly 30%.

Baker said the two sides are “getting down to the very end of the line here” after eight years of negotiations on arms control, but still have difficulties to iron out.

But Baker called the unsettled issues technical in nature and said they might be wrapped up next month.

He said both sides want a START agreement “as rapidly as possible.”

If the Gulf War is still going on later in the year, the United States will have to rethink then whether Bush would go to Moscow, Baker said.