U.S. and Soviets Reach Arms Pact : Diplomacy: Compromise on European forces may clear way for early Bush-Gorbachev summit in Moscow.

The United States and the Soviet Union reached a compromise Saturday on their treaty to reduce conventional armed forces in Europe, clearing away the last significant obstacle to a Moscow summit meeting between President Bush and Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev.

No date for a summit has been set, but officials expect that it will take place sometime this summer.

Saturday’s agreement ended an acrimonious dispute that began last year when Soviet military authorities claimed that thousands of their aircraft, tanks and artillery weapons were exempt from treaty requirements that they be destroyed.

Secretary of State James A. Baker III and Soviet Foreign Minister Alexander A. Bessmertnykh announced the agreement in the courtyard of the U.S. ambassador’s residence here after a three-hour meeting.

“We have agreement in principle that will resolve those issues,” Baker said. He said arms negotiators from both countries will now be able to put the finishing touches on a long-delayed separate treaty reducing each nation’s arsenal of long-range nuclear weapons by about one-third.

Although mostly complete, work on the strategic arms reduction treaty (START) had been stalled by the conventional weapons dispute. Although the two treaties have no formal linkage, the Bush Administration had declared that there was no point in negotiating a new agreement as long as there was a question about whether Moscow would abide by an existing one.

Shortly after Baker’s announcement, President Bush, speaking at the graduation ceremony at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y., announced that the United States and the Soviet Union had “resolved our differences on the CFE treaty, clearing the way for an important step toward a superpower summit.”

Congratulating Baker and Bessmertnykh, the President added: “This is important to world peace and I’m glad to make this announcement right here at West Point.”

Later, Brent Scowcroft, the President’s national security adviser, said “four or five major questions” remain unresolved before the START agreement could be completed, including some affecting the counting of weapons and others involving verification of adherence to the treaty.

But, he said, more than 90% of the problems have been resolved, although “some of the ones that are left to the end are some of the most difficult to deal with.”

“I’m not saying there aren’t substantive issues still left to be resolved, but they are relatively few in number,” he said.

Baker and Bessmertnykh said they will send their strategic arms experts to Geneva immediately with orders to speed up the talks.

Asked about the prospects of a Bush-Gorbachev summit later this month, Scowcroft said: “That’s ambitious. I wouldn’t rule it out, but . . . it depends on what kind of progress we’re able to make on what’s remaining.”

Baker said that resolving the dispute about conventional weapons would “put the two leaders in a position to meet in Moscow at the earliest possible opportunity.”

Bessmertnykh, beaming, agreed: “I think we have made real progress . . . and this opens the way to turn our attention to other basic problems in the relationship.”

The conventional arms treaty, signed last November, limited the members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the now-defunct Warsaw Pact to equal arsenals in Europe--20,000 tanks, 30,000 armored combat vehicles and 20,000 artillery tubes on each side.

In addition, the United States and the Soviet Union were permitted to contribute only about two-thirds of the total maintained by each of the two alliances in each category of weaponry. Any weapons that exceeded these limits were to be destroyed.

The pact hit hardest at the Soviet Union for two reasons. First, because Moscow possessed far larger inventories than the United States or any of the other countries bound by the treaty, it was required to destroy thousands of weapons while most other nations were obliged to get rid of few if any.

For instance, although the Soviet Union and the United States each was restricted to 13,300 tanks in Europe, the Soviet Union was required to destroy more than 10,000 to reach that figure while the U.S. inventory on the Continent was already well below Washington’s allotment.

Second, the Warsaw Pact, already clearly moribund at the time the treaty was signed, has since been disbanded--leaving the Soviet Union without formal allies in the face of a still-unified NATO.

The final issue under dispute was a Soviet move to reclassify 1,129 items of military hardware as part of naval infantry (marines), a branch of the Soviet military unaffected by the conventional arms treaty. The Kremlin claimed that, as reclassified, the hardware was not covered by treaty restrictions. However, none of the other 23 signatory nations supported the Soviet argument.

The dispute was particularly dangerous, U.S. and other Western officials said, because it called into question the Soviet government’s willingness to abide by a treaty it had already signed.

The compromise reached Saturday gave a little from each side. Under the agreement, as described by U.S. officials, the Soviets can keep any armored personnel carriers that were under dispute--but they must downgrade an equal number of armored personnel carriers in other branches of the Soviet military to the equivalent of internal security or police vehicles. Such vehicles are not restricted under the treaty, and the pact allows such downgrading to be carried out.

On other types of equipment, such as tanks and artillery, the Soviets agreed to observe the original treaty limitations.

That way, the numerical limits in the treaty remain undisturbed--meeting the main U.S. concern that the Soviets not be allowed to bend the rules.

“We have settled it in a manner which maintains the full credibility and integrity of the original agreement,” Baker said, referring to a key U.S. priority. “It will be handled, in all probability, through an exchange of notifications and through a process that is provided for in the treaty.

“The overall limits . . . that have been set forth in this conventional forces agreement will be respected and observed in all respects,” he added.

“We have found a good way to solve that issue, and that way is completely satisfactory to the United States,” Bessmertnykh said for his part.

The conversion of the armored personnel carriers into what negotiators call “look-alike vehicles” requires several changes that make them unsuitable for military operations, a U.S. official said.

Baker said the United States will submit the agreement to its allies in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization for their assent. The Soviet Union entered the conventional force negotiations in 1989 as the leader of the Warsaw Pact--but that military alliance disbanded earlier this year.

As for a superpower summit, the two governments had set a deadline of the end of June for such a meeting. Originally, it had been planned for February but was delayed by the Persian Gulf War and tension over the Soviet crackdown against independence movements in the Baltic states.

Baker said Saturday that the two countries have now agreed “to work very hard” for a summit by the end of June, but he added that he could not promise that the work would be completed by then.

President Bush is scheduled to go to London for an economic summit of the seven largest industrial democracies beginning July 15, and there has been speculation that his meeting with Gorbachev could occur immediately before then.

Baker and Bessmertnykh also discussed the Soviet Union’s pleas for Western help in reforming its moribund economy but gave no indication that the positions of each side had changed.

“We had very extensive discussion,” Baker said. “We want very much to be of assistance if our assistance is desired.” But he said the United States was most interested in “technical assistance” and did not offer any direct financial aid.

Bessmertnykh said the issue was not one of concrete Soviet aid requests.

“We are not requesting specific sums,” he said. “We are not requesting money. The concept is much larger than that.”

Baker said Gorbachev’s request to attend the London summit is still under discussion among the participants. Four of the seven economic summit countries--Germany, France, Italy and Canada--have already said Gorbachev should attend. The United States, Japan and Britain have opposed inviting the Soviet leader, fearing that Gorbachev would use the meeting to strong-arm them into promising more financial aid than they want to give.

Baker said that what is being considered is “an appearance” by Gorbachev at the economic summit, not participation in the summit meeting itself.

In the United States, Bush hailed the accord hammered out by Baker and Bessmertnykh, calling it “a good thing for world peace and . . . very good for U.S.-Soviet relations.”

He said although the agreement had not yet received the acquiescence of the other signatories, “we feel that the deal is guaranteed, that others will go along because it is fair.”

Bush cautioned that the final issues in a START treaty “won’t be overly easy to solve, but he asserted nevertheless that “we’re going forward positively, and of course will fit into the Moscow meeting that I want to see very much.”

Bush said he is uncertain whether a Moscow summit would occur before mid-July’s London meeting of the leaders of the industrial democracies.

“As far as I’m concerned, as soon as we get the remaining details out of the way (on the nuclear weapons treaty), the sooner the better (on staging a U.S.-Soviet summit), and I think President Gorbachev wants (that, too).

“I don’t think it’s that critical” whether a Moscow summit occurs before or after the London meeting, Bush said. “We’re getting close on time, getting close on scheduling problems for me and maybe for him.”

But, the President said, he wants the framework of a strategic weapons agreement decided on before a Moscow summit.

“We want to get it down so we can sit down and say, ‘Hey, we’ve got agreement on START,’ whether that means sign a paper with everything . . . that means we have worked out the gritty details that still plague us. The point is that this is good on its own merits and also I think it’ll help.

Times staff writers Norman Kempster in Washington and James Gerstenzang, traveling with President Bush in West Point, N.Y., contributed to this article.

CFE Treaty Provisions

PURPOSE: The Conventional Forces in Europe Treaty, signed last November, limits the European arsenals of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the now-defunct Warsaw Pact. It affects only conventional, or non-nuclear, weapons.

LIMITS: Each side can maintain 20,000 tanks, 30,000 armored combat vehicles and 20,000 artillery tubes. Within each category, the United States and the Soviet Union may contribute only about two-thirds of the total--for instance, only 13,300 of the 20,000 tanks.

PROBLEMS: The treaty hits hardest at the Soviets for two reasons: They have the biggest arsenal, and their allied Warsaw Pact has been disbanded. The final obstacle, cleared Saturday, had been posed by Moscow’s attempt to reclassify 1,129 pieces of weaponry as part of naval infantry, not subject to the treaty.