Both the Prime Minister and Mr. Neil Kinnock are setting off on foreign missions this week - and the success or failure of their trips could help to decide the date of the next General Election. Mrs. Thatcher is going to Moscow on Saturday for a five day visit. And Mr. Kinnock will spend two days in the United States at the end of the week. This morning, Mrs. Thatcher flew to France to collect the views of President Mitterrand on the issues which will be under discussion in her talks with Mr. Gorbachev - particularly East/West relations and disarmament. After two hours of discussions, Mrs. Thatcher went on to Bonn this afternoon to meet Chancellor Kohl. Our first of three reports on the round of international talks is from our correspondent, Philip Short. He was with Mrs. Thatcher and Monsieur Mitterrand in Normandy this morning, at the village of Bénouville, just outside Caen: [end p1]
Speaking at a news conference, President Mitterrand said their discussions had centred on the latest Soviet proposals for removing medium-range nuclear missiles from Europe. Although neither Britain nor France was party to the negotiations, he said, they had a right to give their opinion.
Mrs Thatcher agreed: the whole of Europe and the whole Western world, she declared, would be affected deeply by the outcome of the Soviet-American talks and it was important for our future that those negotiations were handled correctly. She added that the talks with Monsieur Mitterrand had been very useful in clarifying the two countries' positions and it's clear that when she goes to Moscow much of what she tells the Russians will reflect a common European stance which, as one British official put it, will considerably strengthen her hand. Asked about the imbalance in the Soviet Union's favour in short-range nuclear weapons, Mrs Thatcher said it was essential that this be taken into account and both she and President Mitterrand emphasised that the French and British nuclear forces were and would continue to be, non-negotiable because they were crucial to both countries' security. The talks, which included a working lunch, were held at an Eighteenth Century chateau chosen for the meeting because Bénouville was one of the first places to be liberated by British troops during the Normandy landings. Afterwards Monsieur Mitterrand escorted the Prime Minister round the gardens from where they could see Pegasus Bridge - one of the key points taken by British paratroops on the night the landings began.