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Russia Backs Out of Pact at 11th Hour

'Glitch' comes up on missile defense
By Bill Gertz
THE WASHINGTON TIMES -
30 October 1996 page Al

Only days before a signing ceremony was to be held in Geneva, Russia has backed away from an agreement with the United States on regional missile defenses allowed under the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty.

A senior administration official said yesterday a partial agreement with Russia that clarifies which lower-speed regional missile defenses are allowed under the ABM pact has been "completed and prepared for signature."

"There is a glitch that has come up at the 11th hour concerning the relationship between Part 1 and Part 2," the official said. "We're working the problem and still hope to work past this glitch."

Other officials said the agreement "collapsed" because of Russian intransigence.

Failure of the ABM side agreement is the second major setback for the Clinton administration's arms-control agenda. Senate Republicans, last month blocked ratification of what they said was a flawed Chemical Weapons Convention.

Asked if the signing ceremony set for Thursday in Geneva would take place, the senior official said "there has to be an agreement before it can be signed."

The Russian backtracking is the latest "roadblock" in the contentious negotiations over the past three years of talks on the issue, the official said.

The official said that unless the Part 1 agreement is signed, another agreement on missile defense "confidence-building measures" and a memorandum of understanding that expands the number of signatories to the ABM treaty will not be signed. "They are all part of a package," he said.

Agreement was announced by Secretary of State Warren Christopher and Russian Foreign Minister Yevgeny Flyimakov on Sept. 23 and would specify which short-range missile defense systems are allowed under the ABM treaty.

The agreement was hailed by Mr. Christopher as a major step forward in clarifying the ABM treaty, which limits defenses against strategic missiles but was not meant to address regional or "theater" missile defenses.

He said the pact was a "milestone" He and Mr. Primakov confirmed that an agreement has been reached on the first part of a clarification of "lower-velocity, theater missile defenses."

The negotiations were assailed by Pentagon and Capitol Hill critics who say agreeing to Russian demands to limit the speed of missile defense interceptors will hamper US. ability to build needed missile defenses.

The partial agreement limits missile defenses with interceptors that travel slower than 3 kilometers per second. A phase-two agreement was to be negotiated covering faster systems, with greater capability in shooting down missiles and warheads.

On Friday, however, the Russian government notified the US. Embassy in Moscow that it no longer agreed to the two-phase approach and would not sign the first partial agreement, said US. officials familiar with the issue.

Officials say Russians want one agreement to cover slower and faster systems. The accord was to be signed by Undersecretary of State Lynn Davis and Deputy Foreign Minister Georgi Mamedov.

The Russians told the United States they are willing to sign a separate memorandum of under-standing expanding signatories to the ABM treaty to include Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan, the nuclear weapons' successor states.

The diplomatic notification Friday set off a frantic effort by U.S. Ambassador to Russia Thomas Pickering, who spent last weekend talking to Russian foreign ministry officials trying to keep the Russians on schedule for the signing ceremony, officials said.

An administration official said some U.S. officials suspect Mr. Primakov derailed the agreement for domestic political reasons. The hard-line foreign minister may oppose the partial accord because it could hamper his future in government, should Russian President Boris Yeltsin not survive the upcoming heart surgery.

Stephen A. Cambone, former Pentagon strategic defense policy- maker, said this Russian foot- dragging should prompt the administration to abandon the ABM clarification talks as fruitless.

"Russia's refusal [to sign] suggests that they believe they can stop the development and deployment of missile defense systems that are essential to defend US interests and forces abroad and interests of US. allies," he said.

"This is a black day for the Clinton administration," said Frank Gaffney, a Pentagon policy maker in the Reagan administration.

"Russia was supposed to go along with a scheme that would explicitly limit the least effective theater missile defenses and only implicitly constrain the most effective ones," he said.

"By demanding that US programs in both areas be formally hamstrung, the Russians have blown the administration's cover - and just possibly preserved Americals latitude to pursue competent missile defenses."