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

DATE: FRIDAY, April 6, 1990                   TAG: 9004060444
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Los Angeles Times
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Medium

SECOND SUMMIT IN WORKS

President Bush and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev will hold their second summit meeting in Washington from May 30 to June 3, the two countries announced Thursday.

The dates are about two weeks earlier than expected. U.S. and Soviet officials said that the summit apparently was advanced primarily to accommodate the crowded schedules of Bush and Gorbachev.

Soviet spokesman Gennadi Gerasimov said that the meeting would be a "a working visit, no time for sightseeing." It is expected to take place in or around Washington, with no visits by Gorbachev to America's heartland or the West Coast, although a trip to Bush's summer home at Kennebunkport, Maine, has been rumored.

Bush said merely that the summit would provide "time for a lot of dialogue and a lot of discussion." Presidential spokesman Marlin Fitzwater called it a "tough-love" summit, with the crisis in Lithuania a key topic for discussion.

"Is Lithuania an issue? Yes," Fitzwater said. "Does it affect our relationship. Yes. Will it have an effect on the summit? Depends on what happens."

Bush and Gorbachev met last December on storm-tossed ships at the Mediterranean island of Malta. Since then, Lithuania's drive for independence and Moscow's efforts to intimidate the Baltic state into reverse course have threatened to strain superpower relations.

At the coming summit, Bush and Gorbachev are expected to sign new agreements to reduce chemical weapons and to implement previous nuclear test ban treaties, the officials said. In addition, the two leaders are expected to clear away remaining obstacles to a strategic arms reduction treaty, known as START, that will cut offensive nuclear weapons on both sides by 30 percent to 50 percent.

A proposed statement declaring that the two sides intend to continue arms negotiations beyond START is being discussed by Secretary of State James A. Baker III and Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard A. Shevardnadze, who began three days of talks in Washington on Wednesday.

The statement may be completed by the summit or not until formal signing of the START agreement sometime later in the year, officials said.

"The Soviets have expressed a desire" for such a statement, a senior U.S. official said. Baker, he added, responded to the Soviets that "we're interested in discussing the contents, the subjects [of any new negotiations] before committing to it."

by CNB