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Chernenko called ready for talks with the West
Soviet leader Konstantin Chernenko says he is ready for ''a dialogue and for talks'' with the West ''at any moment,'' Monitor correspondent Gary Thatcher reports. But, he said, the dialogue must be ''honest'' and the talks ''serious.''
Mr. Chernenko's comments, scheduled to be printed in Pravda, the official Communist Party newspaper, were released in advance by Tass, the official Soviet news agency. Essentially, they are a response to last week's summit meeting of Western nations in London.
Chernenko, in effect, restated the Soviet Union's demand that new American-supplied NATO missiles be removed from Europe before negotiations with the West could be resumed.
In a separete report, Tass condemned the revival of the Western European Union (WEU) by seven NATO nations, saying it would lead to a build-up of weaponry and a revival of West German militarism.
