Turning the pages back... January 4, 1989 (01/04/04)

Turning the pages back...

January 4, 1989

The Reagan administration announced on Wednesday, January 4, 1989, that it would support a human rights meeting in Moscow to be held in 1991 as part of the Helsinki Accords review process. The proposal to hold the meeting, long-sought by the Soviet Union, was one of the last sticking points at the Vienna Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe that had been meeting since 1986. The White House's Deputy Press Secretary Roman Popadiuk stated that the decision to support a Moscow conference on human rights was intended as a way of "encouraging continuation of the significant progress in human rights that has taken place in the Soviet Union over the past three years."

The United States, Canada, Great Britain, and several other NATO states had opposed holding a human rights conference in Moscow on the grounds that the USSR still fell short of compliance with the human rights provisions of the 1975 Helsinki Accords. The U.S. position on the proposed conference had been that Moscow must meet four preconditions before it could hope to host such a meeting: release all political prisoners, resolve divided families cases (involving U.S. and Soviet citizens), cease jamming of Radio Liberty and ease emigration restrictions. In addition, the U.S. delegation to the Vienna Conference, headed by Ambassador Warren Zimmerman, had stated that guarantees were needed that the Soviets would give non-governmental organizations and the news media access to the Moscow conference. A draft version of a concluding document for the Vienna Conference was introduced by nine neutral and non-aligned states on January 4.

Source: "U.S. announces its support for Moscow rights meeting," The Ukrainian Weekly, January 8, 1989.

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