
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, March 14, 1990                   TAG: 9003143118
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A/5   EDITION: EVENING 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                 LENGTH: Medium

PLAN ON MONITORING TROOP CUTS TO BE DROPPED

The United States, yielding to the concerns of Western European allies, will propose a plan this week to reduce troops and non-nuclear weapons in Europe with a key monitoring provision deleted, a senior Bush administration official says.

The abandoned provision called for stationing monitors at European ports and weapons factories to guard against violations of the 23-nation treaty nearing completion in Vienna.

But the official, who outlined the verification package on condition of anonymity, said virtually all the allies objected strenuously to Soviet monitors at their plants and ports.

The revised Western proposal will be presented in Vienna as negotiators for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the Warsaw Pact hold their sixth round of talks on a treaty designed for signing this year.

Whether the goal is achieved could depend on how the Soviets respond to the Western proposal. "The ball is in their court," the U.S. official said.

The emerging accord calls for sharp reductions in Soviet tanks and artillery in Eastern and Central Europe and a ceiling of 195,000 Soviet troops in the region. There would be much smaller cutbacks in U.S. tanks and troops.

The United States could keep 195,000 soldiers and airmen in West Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, Denmark and Luxembourg, and an additional 30,000 in other NATO countries.

President Bush and Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev want the treaty to be ready for signing by the 16 NAT0 allies and the seven Warsaw Pact countries at a 35-nation summit meeting before the end of the year.

But several issues remain unresolved. Most important among them is a procedure to guard against cheating.

The task involves policing the vast expanse of Europe - from the Ural Mountains in the Soviet Union to the Atlantic Ocean - to make sure the limits on tanks and armored personnel carriers, anti-aircraft artillery, airplanes, helicopters and troops are honored.

The official said a "web" of safeguards would be offered by NATO negotiators in Vienna, including on-site inspection of U.S. and Soviet troops and tank deployments.

Information on non-nuclear armories would be exchanged by the two alliances and then its accuracy checked by monitors who would go to the military installations.

The monitoring system would be supplemented by aerial surveillance under Bush's "Open Skies" proposal as well as a second system of overflights to check on suspicious developments.

And the two sides would have the right to demand to check out suspicious movements of troops and equipment under a system of "challenge inspections."

Agreement within NATO on these measures, and on a plan for destroying excess tanks which also will be presented in Vienna this week, would improve prospects for concluding the treaty.

by CNB