Allies Rebuff U.S. Plea on Soviet Debt : Economy: The Group of Seven industrial nations agree to send a high-level delegation to Moscow to help develop a market system.

The United States, despite its warnings that a new economic crisis could be looming for the Soviet Union, was rebuffed Sunday in its efforts to persuade its key Western allies and Japan to provide debt relief to Moscow.

However, after meeting with representatives of the new reformist government in Moscow, the democratic industrial world’s main economic policy-makers, known as the Group of Seven, agreed to send a delegation of high-level officials to Moscow in coming weeks to work with the Soviets toward transforming their economy into a market system.

While some analysts have warned that Moscow may face a payments shortfall of more than $5 billion in the next few months, the Soviets were said to have told the Group of Seven that they had no immediate need for Western and Japanese help in meeting their debts.

As a result, French Finance Minister Pierre Beregevoy told reporters, the allies were puzzled by a U.S. proposal that they grant a deferral of Soviet debt payments “practically as of today.”

“It wouldn’t have done a service to the Soviet Union to impugn, without a close examination, its financial credibility,” Beregevoy added.

Such a move would have been particularly difficult for Germany, whose bankers hold a large share of that debt, backed by German government guarantees of repayment. The Germans already are complaining that they are shouldering an unfairly large share of the total Soviet economic aid burden; they and other European countries are urging the United States, Japan and Canada to chip in with more humanitarian aid.

Tension over the debt issue underlay both the session with the Soviet delegation and the G-7 meetings leading up to it. Before arriving here, a top U.S. official told reporters that there was “a rough consensus that some alleviation of the short-term debt problem is going to have to take place.”

But that was clearly not the case. European officials made it clear that they are far from convinced that any payments shortfall is likely and suggested that the United States should concentrate its efforts on food and other aid to see the Soviets through what could be a difficult winter.

Privately, U.S. officials, who are backed by Japan and Canada, say the Europeans are refusing to face up to a crisis, wishing futilely instead that it will go away. They add that the problem could be worsened if the independence-minded Soviet republics withhold hard currency from the central government.

After the meeting, U.S. officials sought to play down their differences with their European allies and to focus instead on the significance of the Soviet request that they send finance deputies from the seven countries to Moscow. Plans to dispatch such a delegation had been in the works even before the weekend’s meetings with the Soviets.

“It is the beginning of what is going to be a very long and very detailed process, and hopefully, a very productive one,” Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan told reporters.

Treasury Secretary Nicholas F. Brady, the other U.S. representative at the talks, described the meeting between representatives of the former Communist empire and the capitalist world’s economic leaders as a historic moment.

“They have asked us to come be part of the process that sets up a whole new system in the Soviet Union,” Brady said. “They want the foundation stones that we spent so many years creating in the Western world.”

Indeed, the change is a remarkable one, considering how many decades the Soviets spent denouncing the economic policies of the very countries whose guidance it now seeks. The Group of Seven, or G-7, includes finance ministers and central bankers from the United States, Germany, Japan, Britain, France, Italy and Canada.

The G-7 sessions began Friday as a prelude to this week’s annual meetings of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank. The Soviets are seeking to join both lending institutions but thus far have been granted access only to their technical expertise.

Officials of the G-7 said the Soviet Union is seeking their participation in the economic reform process to give Moscow more credibility, both with the international financial community and with the Soviet people themselves.

“Radical change--change that may be uncomfortable--may be more acceptable” if it comes with the imprimatur of the leading industrial powers, British Chancellor of the Exchequer Norman Lamont said.

Collaboration with G-7 countries on their economic reform efforts is “part of the process of integrating the Soviet Union into the international economic community,” Lamont added.

The Soviet delegation was led by radical economist Grigory A. Yavlinsky, who is deputy chairman of the Committee for Management of the National Economy.

Yavlinsky said the Soviets and the Group of Seven deputies will be making “some very important decisions” at the Moscow sessions.