Kohl’s Arms Offer Gets Mixed Reaction From Soviet Media

MOSCOW —  The Soviet media said West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl’s offer Wednesday to scrap 72 Pershing 1-A missiles if the superpowers reach an arms accord was hedged with conditions, but later reports called it “a step forward.”

Tass, the official Soviet news agency, at first criticized the West German offer as containing “preconditions,” but Radio Moscow later said Kohl’s offer merited careful study.

“It must be said frankly that this (offer from Bonn) is a step forward on the part of the FRG (West German) government, but a careful analysis is still needed here to assess how far this step goes,” the radio said on its main evening bulletin, monitored by the British Broadcasting Corp. in London.

The West German news agency Deutsche Presse-Agentur reported the director of the Soviet press agency Novosti as saying that Kohl’s proposal could lead to a solution to remaining obstacles in Geneva talks on dismantling the world’s intermediate-range nuclear missiles.

“One could speak of a certain development in the position of the Federal Republic in a direction which is beneficial to the solution of the main problem,” Valentin M. Falin was quoted as telling the Koelnische Rundschau newspaper.

Kohl said West Germany would scrap its Pershing 1-As, whose warheads are under U.S. control, if the United States and the Soviet Union reached agreement in Geneva on the medium-range missile issue.

Moscow has regarded the U.S. refusal to include the 72 Pershing 1-As in an arms control treaty as the major obstacle to agreement.