Tough talks at Kremlin

Press, 6 July 1983, Page 6

Tough talks at Kremlin

NZPA-Reuter Moscow The health of the Soviet President, Mr Yuri Andropov, and sharp differences over medium-range missiles have quickly dominated an official visit to Moscow by the West German Chancellor, Dr Helmut Kohl. Minutes before Dr Kohl left for the Soviet capital the Bonn Govenment learned that Mr Andropov would be unable to attend the talks and Dr Kohl later told West German television that his absence had been caused by illness.

West German sources dismissed speculation that Mr Andropov was snubbing Dr Kohl over his outspoken support for plans to deploy new American missiles in Europe. The Prime Minister, Mr Nikolai Tikhonov, stood in for Mr Andropov at Dr Kohl’s first meeting and at a Kremlin banquet, but the Chancellor confirmed that

he would have two rounds of talks with Mr Andropov today. Mr Andropov, aged 69, has looked frail and unsteady during recent pub-

lie appearances and the current heavy, humid Moscow weather may have exacerbated any health problems he may have.

Reliable Soviet sources say that he has kidney trouble and requires treatment on a dialysis machine.

But in his President’s absence Mr Tikhonov showed that Moscow was still ready to take a tough line with the West on the controversial missile issue.

Reading from a speech apparently prepared for Mr Andropov, Mr Tikhonov warned Dr Kohl that the Soviet Union would respond immediately if N.A.T.O. stuck to its plans to start deploying cruise and Pershing rockets in Europe from December.

Mr Tikhonov, aged 78, said that the West was wrong to think that the threat of deployment would force Moscow into making concessions at the United

States missile -talks in Geneva. “We and our allies will respond by taking without delay additional measures to strengthen our security and develop a counter balance to N.A.T.O.’s new military potential,” he said. In May the Kremlin issued a similar warning which Western military experts saw as an indication that Moscow was planning to station short-range nuclear missiles in East Germany and Czechoslovakia.

Mr Tikhonov ' was unusually blunt in his speech, telling Dr Kohl that the Soviet people would be particularly offended to know that their country was once again under a direct threat from German soil.

But Dr Kohl also pulled no punches. In a hard-hit-ting speech he reaffirmed Bonn’s commitment to taking its share of the new

American weapons.

“The Federal Government, which has the backing of the majority of the German people, will not be deflected from this,” he said.

An article from yesterday’s “Pravda” the newspaper of the Soviet Communist Party’s central committee, released by Tass news agency yesterday, gave more evidence of Soviet thinking in the missile debate. It accused the United States of sabotaging the Geneva talks and trying to ensure that they ended in stalemate so that it could go ahead with positioning the new missiles. Dr Kohl said that the Soviet Union carried the full blame for upsetting the military balance in Europe and accused the Kremlin of continuing to strain global relations by maintaining troops in Afghanistan.