§ Mr. Meadowcroftasked the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what recent information he has received on the state of the arms control talks in Geneva.
§ Sir Geoffrey HoweThe seventh round of the Geneva nuclear and space talks was due to end on 4 March. The element of the talks dealing with INF has been extended to enable further discussions to take place. The United States tabled a full draft Treaty on INF on 4 March.
We have also welcomed the statement by Mr. Gorbachev of 28 February in which there were three positive aspects. First, he accepted the concept of an INF agreement based on the zero option which the Alliance put forward some six years ago. Second, he removed the Soviet-imposed linkage between an INF agreement and SDI. Third, he made no reference to United Kingdom and French deterrents being included.
Our aim remains an agreement eliminating LRINIF missiles from Europe and incorporating constraints on shorter-range systems. Thereafter we envisage subsequent negotiations on remaining INF systems. Effective verification will be an essential part of all these negotiations.
The chemical weapons negotiations resumed on 3 February. We hope it will be possible to build on the encouraging progress last year.