§ 48. Mr. Cabornasked the Secretary of State for Defence if he will make a statement on his Department's response to the latest Warsaw pact proposals contained in the Berlin statement covering conventional armaments.
§ Mr. Ian StewartI read the Warsaw pact communiqué with interest, and would draw the hon. Gentleman's attention to the communiqué issued by NATO Foreign Ministers after the meeting of the North Atlantic Council in Reykjavik on 11 June, a copy of which is in the Library of the House. This reiterated the Alliance's determination to pursue its initiatives for achieving a comprehensive, stable and verifiable balance of conventional forces at lower levels. It indicated that work on draft mandates to be tabled in the CSCE meeting and in the conventional stability talks would be pressed ahead. It also reiterated the West's desire to achieve a meaningful agreement in the MBFR talks, calling upon the Warsaw pact to respond positively to the very important proposals made by the West in December 1985.