TRIBUNE SUPPLEMENT

_USSR ADVANCES MAJOR PEACE PLAN

STATEMENT BY SOVIET LEADER

MIKHAIL GORBACHEV,
JAN. 15, 1986

W e are now in the first days of 1986. It will
. be an important year — one can say a
turning point in the history of the Soviet state —

_ the year of the 27th Congress of the Communist

Party of the Soviet Union. The Congress will
chart the guidelines for the political, social,
€conomic and spiritual development of Soviet
Society in the period up to the next millennium.
It will adopt a program for accelerating our
peaceful construction.

All efforts of the CPSU are directed towards
ensuring a further improvement in the life of the
Soviet people.

_ Aturn for the better is also needed in the
international arena. This is the expectation and
the demand of the peoples of the Soviet Union
and of peoples throughout the world.

Being aware of this, at the start of the new
year the politbureau of the CPSU Central
Committee and the Soviet government have
adopted a decision on a number of major foreign
policy actions of a fundamental nature. They
are designed to promote to a maximum degree
an improvement in the international situation.
They are prompted by the need to overcome the
negative, confrontational trends that have been
SrOWing in recent years and to clear ways
towards curbing the nuclear arms race on earth
and Preventing it in outer space, an overall
reduction of the risk of war, and trust building as
an integral part of relations among states.

Our most important action is a concrete
Program aimed at the complete elimination of
nuclear weapons throughout the world and
covering a precisely defined time period.

The Soviet Union is proposing a step-by-step
and consistent process of ridding the earth of
nuclear weapons, to be implemented and
completed within the next 15 years, before the
end of this century.

The 20th century has given humanity the gift
of the energy of the atom. However, this great
achievement of the human mind can turn into an
instrument of self-annihilation.

Is it possible to solve this contradiction? We
are Convinced it is. Finding effective ways
towards eliminating nuclear weapons is a
feasible task, provided it is tackled without

delay.

_ The Soviet Union is proposing a program of
ridding humanity of the fear of a nuclear
Catastrophe to be carried out beginning in 1986.
And the fact that this year has been proclaimed
by the United Nations as International Year of
Peace provides an additional political and moral
incentive for this. What is required here is rising
above national selfishness, tactical calculations,
differences and disputes, whose significance is
nothing compared to the preservation of what is
most valuable — peace and a safe future. The
energy of the atom should be placed at the

exclusive service of peace, a goal that our
socialist state has invariably advocated and
continues to pursue.

It was our country which as early as 1946 was
the first to raise the question of prohibiting the
production and use of atomic weapons and to
make atomic energy serve peaceful purposes for
the benefit of humanity.

How does the Soviet Union envisage today in
practical terms the process of reducing nuclear
weapons, both delivery vehicles and warheads,
leading to their complete elimination? Our
proposals can be summarized as follows:

S tage one: Within the next 5-8 years the
USSR and the USA will reduce by one-half
the nuclear arms that can reach each other’s
territory. Of the remaining delivery vehicles of
this kind, each side will be limited to 6,000
warheads.

It stands to reason that such a reduction is
possible only if the USSR and the USA

mutually renounce the development, testing and

deployment of space strike weapons. As the
Soviet Union has repeatedly warned, the
development of space strike weapons will dash
hopes for a reduction of nuclear weapons on
earth.

The first stage will include the adoption and
implementation of a decision on the complete
elimination of Soviet and American
intermediate-range missiles in the European
zone, both ballistic and cruise missiles, as a first
step towards ridding the European continent of

nuclear weapons.
At the same time the United States should

undertake not to transfer its strategic and
medium-range missiles to other countries, while
Britain and France should pledge not to build up
their respective nuclear arms.

The USSR and the USA should from the very
beginning agree to stop any nuclear tests and
call upon other states to join in sucha
moratorium as soon as possible.

We propose that the first stage of nuclear
disarmament should concern the Soviet Union
and the United States because it is up to them to
set an example for the other nuclear powers to
follow. We said that very frankly to President
Reagan during our meeting in Geneva.

S tage two: At this stage, which should start
no later than 1990 and last for 5-7 years, the
other nuclear powers will begin to engage in
nuclear disarmament. To begin with, they
would pledge to freeze all their nuclear arms
and not to have them in the territories of other
countries.

In this period the USSR and USA will
continue with the reductions agreed upon
during the first stage and also carry out further

measures designed to eliminate their
medium-range nuclear weapons and freeze their
tactical nuclear systems.

Following the completion by the USSR and
USA of the 50 per cent reduction in their
relevant arms at the second stage, another
radical step is taken: all nuclear powers
eliminate their tactical nuclear arms, namely the
weapons having a range (or radius of action) of
up to 1,000 kilometres. At the same stage, the.
Soviet-American accord on the prohibition of
space strike weapons would have to become
multilateral and include the mandatory
participation of major industrial powers.

All nuclear powers would stop nuclear -
weapons tests. “oe
There would be a ban on the development of

non-nuclear weapons based on new physical
principles, whose destructive capacity is close
to that of nuclear arms or other weapons of
mass destruction.

S tage three will begin no later than 1995. At
this stage the elimination of all remaining
nuclear weapons will be completed. By the end

of 1999 there will be no nuclear weapons on
earth. A universal accord will be drawn up that
such weapons should never again come into
being.

We have in mind that special procedures will
be worked out for the destruction of nuclear
weapons as well as the dismantling, -
re-equipment or destruction of delivery
vehicles. In the process, agreement will be
reached on the numbers of weapons to be
destroyed at each stage, the sites of their
destruction, etc.

Verification with regard to the weapons that
are destroyed or limited would be carried out
both by national technical means and through
on-site inspections. The USSR is ready to reach
agreement on any other additional verification
measures.

The adoption of the nuclear disarmament
program that we propose would undoubtedly
have a favorable impact on the negotiations
conducted at bilateral and multilateral forums.
The program would identify specific routes and
reference points, establish a specific time-frame
for achieving agreements and implementing
them and would make the negotiations
purposeful and goal-oriented. This would break
the dangerous trend whereby the momentum of
the arms race is greater than the process of
negotiations.

In summary, we propose that we should enter
the third millennium without nuclear weapons,
on the basis of mutually acceptable and strictly
verifiable agreements. If the United States
administration is indeed committed to the goal
of the complete elimination of nuclear weapons

PACIFIC TRIBUNE, JANUARY 29, 1986 e 7