S.A.L.T. still only close

Press, 11 April 1979, Page 9

S.A.L.T. still only close

NZPA-Reuter Washington fhe United States and the Soviet Union have again fallen short of completing a new Strategic Arms Limitation • reaty, but the negotiations still described themselves yesterday as “very close” to a treaty. American officials said there had been renewed interest in completing separate negotiations on a ban on testing so-called “killer” satellites.

The S.A.L.T. agreement is indirectly tied to the issue of the killer satellites because it would ban each nation from interfering with each other’s satellites. A killer satellite agreement would go a step farther, banning even the testing of such devices. The Soviets already have tested a satellite-destroying system, and last October the

United States Defence Secretary (Mr Harold Brown) announced chat Moscow had achieved the ability to destroy some United States satellites.

In discussing S.A.L.T. the Soviet Ambassador (Mr Ana-: toly Dobrynin) and the United States Secretary of State (Mr Cyrus Vance) conferred for more than an hour over the remaining issues.

Afterwards, they agreed to repeat the description Mr Dobrynin gave on Saturday when asked about the status of the talks: “Closer and closer. Very close.” A State Department spokesman, Mr Tom Reston, added that “some final items remain to be cleared up,” But he refused to provide details. Mr Reston said Mr Vance and Mr Dobrynin expected to meet again soon, but had not yet set a date.