Yeltsin Calls for Worldwide Antimissile Defense System

Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin, determined to play a major role in world politics despite his country’s immense problems, called Friday for creation of a global antimissile defense system to give countries the security they would need to slash or eliminate entirely their arsenals of nuclear weapons.

Yeltsin’s proposal, more an idea than a concrete plan, would draw on the technology developed by the United States for its Strategic Defense Initiative, or “Star Wars,” program and by the former Soviet Union in a similar effort; he suggested that Russia, the United States and other nuclear powers develop and operate the system jointly.

“There would be no need for nuclear weapons, either on submarines or on land,” Yeltsin told a press conference. “If terrorists or others want to make use of nuclear weapons, they would get a rebuff from space.”

In his debut on the international stage at the summit of members of the U.N. Security Council, Yeltsin presented the somber, undramatic demeanor that characterized other leaders at the session but delivered his plea on arms control with the same forceful style he uses in addressing the Russian Parliament.

And as the assembled heads of state returned to the cavernous Security Council chamber after lunch, Yeltsin strolled along the corridor with President Bush at his side, visibly at ease in his surroundings.

Yeltsin, during his speech, stressed Russia’s break with the past policies of the old Soviet Union.

“It is a historical irony that the Russian state, the Russian Federation, with its age-long experience in foreign policy and diplomacy, has only just appeared on the political map of the world,” said Yeltsin, who will hold a one-on-one summit meeting with President Bush today at Camp David, Md., outside Washington.

“I am confident that the world community will find in Russia . . . a firm and steadfast champion of freedom, democracy and humanism,” Yeltsin said in outlining the philosophical basis of Moscow’s new foreign policy.

Yeltsin, meeting with French President Francois Mitterrand earlier in the day, disclosed that all strategic nuclear missiles outside Russia in the other former Soviet republics are being “de-targeted” through the removal of their flight instructions. They will either be destroyed or removed to Russia by the end of the year, he said.

All tactical nuclear weapons of the Soviet armed forces are now under Russian control, and most have been moved out of other republics for storage in Russia, he added. Plans are being made to destroy most of these.

Yeltsin quickly sketched his other disarmament proposals at the Security Council’s summit, including his call earlier this week for deep cuts in the U.S. and Russian nuclear arsenals and further reductions in conventional armed forces.

“Russia believes that the time has come to reduce considerably the presences of the means of destruction on our planet,” Yeltsin said.

The Russian president said his government is also putting together a program to ensure that the scientists and engineers who have worked in the sprawling Soviet military-industrial complex will find rewarding employment, perhaps on the proposed global missile defense system, and not be lured into working for other countries seeking to develop nuclear and other advanced weapons systems.

Yeltsin said that he will press his disarmament program as an essential part of Russia’s economic and political reforms as well as Russian diplomacy when he meets President Bush today.

“I will do everything possible to convince the President of this,” Yeltsin told journalists, stressing the importance that he attaches to the proposed antimissile defense but acknowledging that the U.S. program is well under way while the Soviet program remains largely on paper.

Air Marshal Yevgeny I. Shaposhnikov, the commander of the strategic forces of the Commonwealth of Independent States, which groups Russia and 10 other former Soviet republics, also spoke enthusiastically of a system that Moscow had earlier denounced.

“The times, 1983 and 1992, are different,” he said. “And it is not the United States or Russia but the world as a whole that needs this system now.”

Recalling President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s call for “Four Freedoms”--freedom of speech and religion, and freedom from want and from fear--Yeltsin said: “If we want to give the people that freedom from fear, we have to protect the people from terrorists and crazy politicians.”

Yeltsin said the Camp David talks will set the agenda for full Russian-American arms negotiations. The meeting is likely also to set a date for Yeltsin’s return to Washington in the spring or early summer--as early as April, as late as July--for his first formal state visit.

“We’d like to do it as soon as possible because there are a lot of things to talk about,” a senior Administration official said of the second Yeltsin summit.

In addition to arms control, the Camp David agenda will include economic development in Russia, relations between the former Soviet republics and the nations of Eastern Europe that once made up the Soviet Bloc, and the relationship of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization to the Commonwealth of Independent States.

Yeltsin, in sketching the new basis of Russian foreign policy, sought above all in his address to other world leaders to demonstrate how differently his nation, shed of its socialist ideology, will behave in world affairs.

“The new Russian diplomacy will contribute in every possible way to the final settlement of conflicts in various regions of the world that have been unblocked with the assistance of the United Nations,” he told the other leaders. “We are ready to become more fully engaged in these efforts.”

Russia is ready to take part in U.N. peacekeeping operations, including a quick-reaction force proposed by Mitterrand, and to provide logistic support, Yeltsin said.

The scale of the change in Moscow’s approach to international relations was clearest in Yeltsin’s harsh denunciation of the socialist ideology of the old Soviet Union--and his warning that other countries should draw upon the hard lessons that Russia has learned.

“This is a problem that concerns not just individual nations or states but all humanity,” he said. “After all, an economy mutilated by ideological diktat and built contrary to all common sense forms the principal material basis of totalitarianism.”

A Call for Global Defense

Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin in a speech to the U.N. Security Council proposed a global defense system incorporating the Strategic Defense Initiative, or “Star Wars,” and Russia’s defense technology. The proposal comes on the heels of offers by Yeltsin and President Bush to scale back their defense capabilities. The two leaders meet today tat the Camp David presidential retreat in Maryland. Here are some of the cutbacks they’ve proposed: BORIS YELTSIN Yeltsin has offered to: Have Russia and the United States reduce their strategic arsenals more than 80%. Create a jointly operated global defense system, similar to the “Star Wars” program. Help tight international controls on uranium and on chemical and biological agents used in weapons Yeltsin says he already has: Halted the production of the long-distance Blackjack and Bear heavy bombers. Stopped the building of air-and sea-launched cruise missiles. Reduced by half the patrols conducted by its nuclear-missile submarines. GEORGE BUSH Bush has offered to: Eliminate all land-based multiple warhead missiles. Reduce the number of warheads to be deployed on Trident missiles by about one-third. Convert a large portion of the strategic bomber fleet to deliver conventional rather than nuclear bombs. Bush already plans to: Restrict the B-2 Stealth bomber to 20 planes, rather than the 75 bombers. Cease production of W-88 warheads for Trident missiles. Cancel the Midgetman missile. THE RESULTS Both sides would be left with roughly 4,500 long-range nuclear missiles if Yeltsin and the leaders of the three other former Soviet republics that have nuclear weapons agree to Bush’s proposals. Before the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty of 1990, the United States had 12,000 nuclear weapons and the former Soviet Union had 27,000

Source: Staff and wire reports