Soviets ‘positive’ to South Pacific nuclear-free zone

Press, 8 February 1986, Page 31

Soviets ‘positive’ to South Pacific nuclear-free zone

PA Moscow Soviet officials had, during recent talks with a forum delegation, expressed a "positive attitude” to the South Pacific nuclear-free zone, said the Soviet news agency, Tass. Soviet and South Pacific Forum delegates held talks on the South Pacific Nuclear-Free Zone Treaty and Protocols in the Soviet Foreign Ministry last week. Tass said Soviet representatives there explained the nuclear-free world concept advanced by Mr Mikhail Gorbachev last month. They saw the programme to eliminate nuclear weapons and prevent their deployment in space as a way of radically improving international relations. The Soviets also highlighted their decision to extend until March 31 their earlier-announced unilateral moratorium on nuclear explosions. They believed these initiatives had created an opportunity to stop nuclear tests and to work towards an international treaty on comprehensively banning nuclear weapon tests. Tass said the U.S.S.R. viewed the creation of nuclear-free zones as important in the struggle to narrow the sphere of nuclear preparations. On that basis, the Soviet Union expressed from the start its positive attitude

to South Pacific states efforts to create a nuclear-free zone. The Soviet Union did not exclude any state, whether participants or non-participants in military alliances, in its attitude to such zones, Tass said. Any country renouncing the acquisition of nuclear weapons and not having them on its territory, would get firm and effective guarantees from the U.S.S.R. Soviet representatives at the talks saw the South Pacific nuclear-free zone as an Important contribution to Asian and Pacific security, Tass said. Such a zone also narrowed the spread of nuclear weapons and helped eliminate nuclear weapons worldwide, as well as preventing their use in space. The South Pacific Forum’s treaty and protocols basically corresponded to Soviet criteria for nuclear-free zones, Tass added. The treaty’s provision of support for efforts to preserve the effectiveness of the international regime of non-proliferation of nuclear weapons, based on the nuclear non-prolif-eration treaty and the safeguards system of the international atomic energy agency also won Soviet approval. They said it was important to ensure the treaty did create a genuine nuclear-free zone. This

presupposed, Tass said, a ban on the transit through the zone of nuclear weapons and nuclear explosive devices, including visits at ports and air fields there by foreign warships and aircraft with nuclear weapons. The South Pacific Forum delegation was also told of several other considerations and asked questions about individual provisions of the treaty and the accompanying protocols, Tass said. Tass named the Soviet officials involved as Mr V. F. Petrovsky, a member of the Collegium of the Foreign Ministry of the U.S.S.R., other senior officials from the Foreign Ministry of the U.S.S.R. and a Defence Ministry representative of the U.S.S.R. The South Pacific Forum delegation was led by Mr David Saldier of Australia. Other members included Mr Chris Beeby, New Zealand; Miss Gracie Fong, Fiji; Mr Joseph Bagut, Papua New Guinea; Mr Levi Laka, Solomon Islands; and Mr Anthony Manaranji, Cook Islands. New Zealand’s Ambassador to the Soviet Union, Miss Allison Stokes, and Mr Robert Tyson, acting Australian charge d’affaires, also attended the talks. Delegation members also met with Professor Mikhail Kapitsa, a deputy Foreign Minister of the Soviet Union, Tass said.