Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, July 5, 1990 TAG: 9007050333
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A/1 EDITION: EVENING
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Foreign ministers of two dozen Western nations agreed Wednesday in Brussels to extend to Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria and East Germany an assistance program initially set up to help Poland and Hungary. They refused to include Romania because of recent violent repression of protesters there.
No specific dollar numbers were committed in the discussions here. The Western nations previously had pledged more than $12 billion in food, economic and environmental assistance to Poland and Hungary.
"This was not a pledging session," said Secretary of State James Baker.
The foreign ministers ducked the troublesome question of direct economic assistance to the Kremlin, however. In their final statement, they discussed the situation there and merely "underlined their interest in positive developments" toward a democracy and a free-market economy.
President Bush urged his NATO allies today to invite Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev to address a future summit of the Western alliance as a goodwill gesture, diplomatic sources said.
Bush said leaders of the other Warsaw Pact nations of Eastern Europe also should be invited.
The president made his surprise proposal at the opening of a two-day NATO summit called to reshape the Western alliance as a result of the rapidly diminishing military threat from the East. The allies were expected to endorse Bush's idea.
Along with a series of Bush proposals to revamp NATO for a less militaristic future, the allies were expected to debate at their London meeting whether Western nations should rush cash assistance to Moscow to help bail out the Soviet Union's crumbling economy. On Wednesday, Bush seemed to ease his conditions for Western aid.
The summit, however, was far from harmonious.
West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl told NATO leaders they should make a joint declaration with Warsaw Pact countries "that we no longer regard one another as adversaries."
Said Kohl: "Confrontation and the Cold War belong to the past."
But French President Francois Mitterrand said he opposed Kohl's call for a joint non-aggression declaration, as does the United States. One Canadian official said the idea was "losing speed."
Acknowledging that she was in danger of being called a "Cold War warrior," British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher cited detailed statistics about Soviet arms production and urged NATO to keep up its guard while reaching out to Moscow and East Europe.
She also expressed qualms about Bush's proposal that NATO declare it would use nuclear arms in Europe only as a "last resort." Thatcher urged the Western allies to avoid any misunderstanding about their support of European security "lest the deterrence of our weaponry is impaired."
"We are at a turning point in Europe's history," Thatcher said as the summit got under way.
"Our signal from this meeting must continue to be one of resolve in defense, resolve and unity and defense, coupled with willingness to extend the hand of friendship to Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union," she said.
by CNB