204. Telegram From the Embassy in the Soviet Union to the Department of State1
2316. Subj: February 9 Meeting With Korniyenko: Afghanistan, Iran, Aeroflot Flights. Refs: (A) Moscow 2279, (B) State 35391, (C) State 35315.2
1. (S—Entire text.)
2. Reftel A summarized the highlights of my meeting with First Deputy Foreign Minister Korniyenko on the afternoon of February 9. There follows for the record a fuller account of the meeting.
Afghanistan
3. After Korniyenko had read the Secretary’s letter to Gromyko (Reftel B), he said that while I of course did not expect him to give an immediate response he would like to make two or three points.3 He began with Afghanistan, stating that, as Gromyko had already told me and as the Soviets had told us repeatedly both through Dobrynin and publicly, there was only one reason for their having sent troops to Afghanistan, at the request of that government—to repel external aggression. Unfortunately, that reason continued.
4. He said that aggression as defined by the United Nations—and our two countries had participated actively in developing that definition—was not necessarily limited to the violation of the borders of one state by the armed forces of another. That which had happened in Afghanistan, and unfortunately was still happening on an even larger scale—the introduction from the territory of Pakistan of weapons and armed units, not small units but large, armed units—was very real aggression. And it was well known, he added, that the U.S. had a very direct relationship to that aggression. To try, therefore, to make it appear that the U.S. did not understand why the Soviets had sent their troops in and their objective was simply not serious. Their sole purpose was to assist Afghanistan in repelling external aggression. “We have frequently stated this and I can again firmly state it today.”
[Page 576]5. For that reason, Korniyenko went on, all inventions with regard to plans or designs on the part of the Soviet Union vis-à-vis Pakistan or Iran, or concerning a movement to warm seas, were “absolute nonsense.” If the aggression stopped, if the armed incursions into Afghanistan from the territory of Pakistan “or any other territory” stopped, the necessity for the presence of Soviet troops in Afghanistan would cease. But only in that case—i.e., when the discontinuance of the aggression was guaranteed—would Soviet troops be withdrawn, and not before.
6. Korniyenko said that he must categorically reject the statement in the Secretary’s letter concerning the violation of Afghan sovereignty by the Soviet Union. The right to appeal to another government for help was one of the elemental attributes of sovereignty. The Afghan Government could do so even in the absence of the UN Charter or the bilateral Afghan-Soviet treaty; its right to do so was even clearer, given the reaffirmation in the UN Charter of the inalienable right to individual and collective self-defense. And the bilateral treaty meant that the Soviet Union had not only the right but a direct obligation to afford assistance at the request of the Afghan Government. Thus, he must repeat that any assertion that the actions of the Soviet Union violated Afghan sovereignty was absolutely unacceptable, since it absolutely did not correspond to reality.
[Omitted here is information unrelated to Afghanistan.]
- Source: National Archives, RG 59, Office Files of Marshall D. Shulman, Special Advisor to the Secretary on Soviet Affairs, 1977–1981, Lot 81D109, CV-Gromyko Letters, 2/8/80. Secret; Immediate; Nodis; Cherokee.↩
- Telegrams 2279 from Moscow (Ref A), 35391 to Moscow (Ref B), and 35315 to Moscow (Ref C) are all dated February 9. (National Archives, RG 59, Central Foreign Policy File, P900077–1658 and N800003–0196, N800003–0181, and P880025–0666 and N800003–0172, respectively)↩
- Telegram 35391 transmitted Vance’s letter. See Document 202.↩