77. Editorial Note
On February 10, 1990, Secretary of State James Baker flew from Moscow to Sofia, where he met with Bulgarian officials and opposition leaders. He flew to Bucharest on February 11, departing that evening for Ottawa to attend the Open Skies Ministerial Conference of North Atlantic Treaty Organization and Warsaw Pact Foreign Ministers. The Secretary returned to Washington on February 13.
From Sofia, in telegram SECTO 1018 to the Department of State, February 10, the Secretary’s Delegation transmitted to Washington the text of the February 10 U.S.-Soviet Ministerial, which included the following language on the Strategic Arms Reduction Talks:
“The Secretary and the Foreign Minister held a through exchange of views on arms control and disarmament issues. With respect to the Treaty on the Reduction and Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms, they reaffirmed their common objective of resolving all major issues by the June Summit in order to allow signature of the treaty by the end of the year. To further this goal, the sides reached agreement or exchanged new proposals in a number of areas.
“On air-launched cruise missiles, the sides made substantial progress on a package approach, agreeing on all remaining issues with the exception of the range threshold.
“The sides also made good progress on search-launched cruise missiles. The sides agreed that such missiles would be dealt with by parallel, politically binding declarations for the duration of the START treaty. The Secretary and the Foreign Minister agreed that the remaining issues involving SLCMs would be addressed at the negotiations in Geneva.
“The sides agreed that there would be numerical limits on non-deployed ballistic missiles and the warheads attributable to them for all ICBMs of a type that has been flight-tested from a mobile launcher. Other non-deployed ballistic missiles, non-deployed cruise missiles and non-deployed heavy bomber weapons will not be subject to numerical [Page 501] limits. The sides further agreed on a regime governing the location and movement of all non-deployed ballistic missiles.
“The sides reached agreement on major elements of a regime to ensure the non-denial of telemetry data during flight tests of START-accountable ballistic missiles. These provisions will be included in the START treaty, but will be implemented early, at the time of treaty signature, through an exchange of letters.
“The U.S. side presented new proposals on verification of mobile ICBMs, duration of the treaty, phasing of reductions, and attribution of warheads to future types of ballistic missiles. The Soviet side presented new proposals dealing with non-circumvention. The Secretary and the Foreign Minister instructed their negotiators to discuss these new proposals and to expedite efforts on resolving remaining differences in the text of the treaty and its associated documents.” (Department of State, Central Foreign Policy File, D900130–0288)
In telegram 52134 to the Delegation to the Nuclear and Space Talks in Geneva, February 16, the Department of State transmitted negotiating instructions reflecting the results of the Moscow Ministerial. (Department of State, Central Foreign Policy File, D900147–0630)