GENEVA Reuter: Negotiators at a 40 nation Disarmament Conference appears to be moving closer to global ban on chemical weapons but is still searching for ways to remove the major stumbling block how to check compliance with a treaty western diplomat said.
The Geneva conference which has trying for outlaw chemical arms since the late 1960s ends its 1986 session with no breakthrough in sight.
But its two most prominent members the United States and the Soviet Union are intensifying efforts to narrow differences over this and other arms issues in the runup to a possible second summit meeting between President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev later this year.
Washington and Moscow are holding separate talks on chemical arms on the sidelines of the 40nation gathering. One set of these bilateral talks is devoted to terms of the global ban the other is concerned with preventing such weapons spreading to states that do not already have them.
Both sets of bilateral talks are in response to a joint call by Reagan and Gorbachev in a communique after their Geneva summit last November.
Article extracted from this publication >> September 5, 1986
