Soviet Foreign Minister to Visit NATO

BRUSSELS, Belgium--NATO foreign ministers said yesterday that Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard A. Shevardnadze would make an unprecedented visit to the alliance's headquarters next week.

Shevardnadze's request for a meeting next week at the North Atlantic Treaty Organization overshadowed the opening day of talks at which U.S. Secretary of State James A. Baker III called for a larger political role for the alliance.

Baker called Shevardnadze's visit "a good thing" and said, "It's very natural in light of the changes that are taking place and continuing to take place."

It would be the first visit by a Soviet foreign minister to the headquarters of the Western military alliance, a sign of the remarkable events unfolding in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe.

"This is a beautiful symbol of the growing cooperation between what can no longer be called the two [military] blocks but let's say East and West," said Belgian Foreign Minister Mark Eyskens, whose government was instrumental in arranging the visit.

Shevardnadze already was scheduled to be in Brussels on Monday and Tuesday to sign a new trade and economic cooperation agreement with the 12-nation European Community. The accord will expand commercial ties between Moscow and prosperous Western Europe.

NATO spokesperson Robin Stafford said officials were trying to arrange a meeting between Shevardnadze and NATO Secretary-General Manfred Woerner.

Shevardnadze also was expected to meet informally with the ambassadors of all 16 NATO nations.

A senior Canadian official suggested the Soviet official's visit might be more of a courtesy call.

"I really don't expect it will be a deeply substantive meeting because it's not what the Soviets are looking for," said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. "They are not planning to negotiate with NATO."

The Western foreign ministers began their talks by agreeing to submit a draft arms-control treaty to Warsaw Pact negotiators in Vienna.

NATO negotiators then placed the draft on the bargaining table in Vienna, several hours after the Warsaw Pact offered its plan.

The alliances presented the texts as part of efforts to reach a speedy agreement. NATO wants an accord wrapped up in 1990; the United States is pressing for a June deadline.

President Bush has called for the United States and the Soviet Union to reduce their troop levels in Europe to 275,000 on each side. That would require a cutback of 325,000 in Soviet forces and 30,000 in U.S. troops. President Mikhail S. Gorbachev has offered to go down to 350,000.

As of June, the International Institute for Strategic Studies lists 326,400 troops for the United States European Command, and 565,000 Soviet troops outside the Soviet Union.

NATO and the Warsaw Pact have also proposed both sides agree to equal ceilings in Europe of 20,000 tanks and 28,000 armored troop carriers.

The Warsaw Pact draft proposed equal limits of 4700 on combat aircraft. NATO earlier proposed a ceiling of 5700.

The bargaining is seen as a key part of the Western alliance's efforts to redefine its role in an era of dramatically reduced tensions.

Officials said Baker outlined his plans for a wider political role for NATO. His plan, unveiled in Berlin on Monday, foresees the alliance as a permanent monitor of the reductions being discussed in Vienna and as a mediator of regional conflicts.

"It finds a positive resonance," said the Canadian official. "Everybody wants the alliance to be functioning well as a political consultative body."

Italy's foreign minister, Giovanni De Michelis, said, "The evolution of Eastern Europe obviously creates the necessity of evolution on the Western side."

British Foreign Secretary Douglas Hurd said he supported "the main thrust" of Baker's plan but he also reminded the ministers of NATO's need to keep its "robust defense capability."