Secretary of State George Shultz and Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze will discuss human rights issues when they meet in Washington Sept. 15-17, the State Department said Thursday.
Department spokesman Charles Redman said that although arms control will be the major topic, “We shall also use the occasion to press for further progress on human rights and humanitarian issues.”
Shultz and other State Department officials have always stressed to American Jewish groups that the condition of Soviet Jewry and the need for increased emigration has always been raised by United States officials in any meeting with the Soviets.
Also to be discussed are the two other topics raised by the U.S. at meetings with the Soviet Union, bilateral and regional issues. Richard Murphy, Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern and South Asian Affairs, recently met with his Soviet counterpart, Vladimir Polyakov, in Geneva.
The long-awaited announcement of the meeting between Shultz and Shevardnadze was made by the White House Thursday. It will come as the United Nations General Assembly begins its annual meeting in New York and Redman indicated the two Foreign Ministers might have another meeting at the UN.
The meeting could also set the stage for a summit meeting between President Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, Possibly in October.
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