1 . W
NO DATE
M 152 5 December, 1974
LIMITATION OF STRATEGIC OFFENSIVE ARMS
The Prime Minister and Acting Foreign Minister,
Mr Whitlam, said today that he welcomed the joint statement
by President Ford and Mr Brezhnev on the limitation of
strategic offensive arms issued at the conclusion of their
recent talks at Vladivostock. The two leaders had reaffirmed
their intention to conclude a further ten-year agreement on
the limitation of strate-ic offensive arms.
Mr Whitlam said that all governments should agree
with President Ford and Mr Brezhnev that a long-term agreement
on this question would be a sipnific-nt contribution
to improving relations between the United States and the
Soviet Union, to reducing the danger of war, and to the
enhancing of world peace.
The joint statement said that the two leaders
agreed that further negotiations, which would resume in
Geneva next month, would incorporate relevant provisions
of the interim SALT agreement concluded in 1972, and provide
for a new agreement to run from October 1977 to 1985. Both
sides would be entitled to have a certain agreed aggregate
number of land and sea-based missiles equipped with multiple
independently targetted warheads ( MIRVs).
The Prime Minister said this agreement regarding
future negotiations was a significant and heartening
result of the first meeting between President e'ord and
Mr Brezhnev. He welcomed the comment of the US Secretary
of State, Dr Henry Kissinger that the agreement " marks the
breakthrough witl the SALT negotiations that we have sought
to achieve in recent years".
The Frime Minister zecalled that during his own
address to the United Nations General Assembly on
September, he had spoken of the special obligations which
the might of the superpowers imposed upon them, and had
said that other countries were entitled to ask the superpowers
to move forward to a stage of complete detente where
their tremendous power can be used jointly to the betterment
of the whole of civilisation. A
The Prime Minister said all reasonable persons
must realise that there would be very many great problems
to be resolved in the long negotiations which would be
held between the US and the Soviet Union towards the
conclusion of a new ten-year agreement, but that it was
heartening to learn that President Ford and Mr Brezhnev
had concluded that favourable prospects existed for the
completion of the work on the proposed new agreement in
1975. The subjects to be discussed were very complex
and highly technical, and they bore on the vital security
of two super powers and thus, directly or indirectly, on
the security of all othcr countries in the world.
The Prime Minister said he hoped that this
welcome development between the two super powers would be
followed by action by the US and the Soviet Union and by
the other nuclear powers and countries of advanced technology
towards strengthening the NPT, and thus working for
the containment and reduction of nuclear weapons, and to
endeavour to ensure that nuclear energy, with its tremendous
potential, was directed towards peaceful uses.