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- <text id=91TT0446>
- <title>
- Mar. 04, 1991: World Notes:Diplomacy
- </title>
- <history>
- TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1991
- Mar. 04, 1991 Into Kuwait!
- </history>
- <article>
- <source>Time Magazine</source>
- <hdr>
- WORLD, Page 57
- World Notes
- DIPLOMACY
- Arms Pact Sleight of Hand
- </hdr><body>
- <p> With the Soviets apparently reverting to their old
- treaty-cheating ways, negotiations on a pact covering
- conventional forces in Europe broke down in Vienna last week.
- Just three months after George Bush and Mikhail Gorbachev
- signed a CFE agreement, U.S. officials apparently felt that the
- Soviets have been giving them highly suspect estimates of
- weapons in the treaty region and decided to postpone further
- formal meetings until March 21. In secret documents, the
- Soviets assert that they have only 21,000 tanks in Europe; the
- U.S. says the real number is 42,000. The U.S. expected a tally
- of 58,000 armored combat vehicles, but the Soviets counted only
- 28,000. The Soviets say they have only 13,000 pieces of
- artillery in the area; the U.S. says 52,000. Negotiators
- complain that the Soviets also plan to transfer 20,000 men and
- 4,000 weapons to the naval infantry, which is not covered by
- the pact.
- </p>
- <p> The Soviets argue that these weapons were all moved out of
- the treaty area under unilateral cutbacks announced earlier by
- Gorbachev, but Congress is unlikely to be swayed.
- Administration officials conclude that the CFE pact, once
- virtually assured of Senate ratification, cannot be submitted
- for a vote until the ambiguities are cleared up.
- </p>
-
- </body></article>
- </text>
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