§ Mr. Andrew F. Bennettasked the Secretary of State for Defence if he will make it his policy to invite Soviet General Secretary Gorbachev to share with Her Majesty's Government Soviet technology designed to detect, identify and quantify nuclear weapon tests; and if he will make a statement.
§ Mr. LeeDetection, identification and quantification of underground nuclear explosions must be based on seismology. However, Her Majesty's Government firmly believe that seismic methods are currently incapable of adequate detection and identification of nuclear explosions. Despite Soviet claims on the adequacy of its own seismic monitoring stations, we do not believe that Soviet techniques are demonstrably superior to those of the West. Consequently there seems little reason to believe that a technical bilateral exchange would lead to real progress in resolving Her Majesty's Government's concerns over verification. We regret that the Soviet Union has been dismissive of the recent United States offer to discuss a technique relevant to the verification of the threshold test ban treaty and peaceful nuclear explosions treaty.
Government-funded research in this field is proceeding and the results are made openly available to the international community. A United Kingdom paper was presented to the conference on disarmament in Geneva in July 1985. The United Kingdom also plays an active part in the work of the ad hoc group of scientific experts at the United Nations.