TNAG-1787-FCO40-2547-Hong-Kong-Vietnamese-refugees-general-1988 — Page 128

FÜRKIGI SBC.

QUESTION:

-7-

A two part question.

You have expressed impatience about the way NATO is tackling

its own position on conventional arms.

Are you also impatient

about the pace at which the comprehensive arms concept is being

developed and is it good enough simply to have what appears to be an

interim report in December?

And on a more specific point, Mr. Shevardnadze has now outlined the new Soviet proposals for conventional arms, for

tackling the negotiations; do you have any reaction for that yet at

all?

FOREIGN SECRETARY:

On the second point, I have not obviously yet had a chance of studying the whole of Mr. Shevardnadze's speech but if one reads that together with the statements by Mr. Gorbachev on the 30 May, I think, as I said in my statement, there are some possibly

encouraging signs, namely

arms control discussions

-

I am looking now at the conventional

the explicit acknowledgement of the

importance of verification, the acknowledgement

so it seems

+

of

the legitimacy of asymmetrical reductions and the acknowledgement again so it seems that asymmetrical reductions need to be made ahead of any further across-the-board reductions.

We shall have to

see how far those are fleshed out in the detailed negotations, but

those are the things I am looking at.