Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger’s three days of talks with Soviet leaders in Moscow, beginning tomorrow, is “preparatory” to President Nixon’s projected visit to Moscow in late June and will not result in any agreements or decisions between the United States and the Soviet Union, the State Department said. “Nothing is to be agreed upon there,” spokesman George Vest said, referring to reports of possible bilateral declarations on economic and military topics. The Secretary’s trip is “exploratory,” he emphasized.
Vest said he could not give details of the discussions to take place on a trade reform act embodying the Jackson/Mills-Vanik amendments pending in the Senate. He said Kissinger had not had any other discussions with Sen. Henry Jackson (D.Wash.) since meeting with Jackson and Sen. Abraham Ribicoff (D.Conn.) a week ago to discuss possible compromises on the amendments.
The State Department has still not heard from the Syrian government as to who its representative for the projected Israeli-Syrian disengagement talks in Washington will be or when he will arrive here, Vest said. He said the U.S. had made inquiries to the Syrian government on that matte but indicated that no substantive reply had yet been received, despite the fact that Israeli Foreign Minister Abba Eban and Kissinger said here last week that Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Dayan would be in Washington for the talks on March 29, the day Kissinger will be back at the State Department following his Moscow visit.
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