notably on INF.
- Can anyone argue convincingly that without the NATO decision to
deploy Cruise and Pershing, difficult though it was, we could now look forward with confidence to the prospect of an INF-free Europe?
Decisions for example
We shall
Other difficult decisions face the Alliance. concerning the modernisation of NATO's SNF in the face of continuing Soviet modernisation of its own comparable weapons. continue to work for a consensus on the decisions we need,
collectively, to take.
NATO's arms control priorities now, as stated by President Reagan and my rt hon friend the Prime Minister in 1986, are a 50% cut in superower strategic nuclear arsenals; a global ban on Chemical Weapons and the elimination of conventional imbalances between NATO and the Warsaw Pact in Europe. NATO proposals have set the agenda in all these areas. Within NATO, the UK has been active in helping to shape that agenda, not least in the context of the negotiations on conventional stability talks at the Vienna Review Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe.
I
- These are themes for my noble friend Lord Trefgarne to develop.
will only add in passing that we have worked also to strengthen the European component of NATO. As the current Presidency of the WEU, now enlarged with the welcome accession of Spain and Portugal, we have sought to encourage discussion of practical ways of
We believe the WEU can strengthening European defence co-operation. also serve as a forum for co-ordinating European approaches to out-of-area issues, for example, in the protection of merchant shipping in the Gulf.
My Lords, over the past eight years the entire Western Alliance has been strengthened by the steady leadership of President Reagan and Secretary of State Shultz. Across the whole range of East-West issues, they have left a record of solid achievement. exceptionally close relationship with the present Administration.
We enjoy an
SELAAI
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