Reykjavik Summit

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The Reykjavik Summit was a summit between Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev held in Reykjavík on October 11, 1986. The talks in the Icelandic capital collapsed at the last minute but the progress achieved led to the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty between the United States and the Soviet Union.

In 1986 Reagan had proposed banning all ballistic missiles but continuing controversial Strategic Defence Initiative research that could eventually be shared. Yet Soviet suspicion of SDI continued, and U.S.-Soviet relations were further strained that year by the Daniloff-Zakharov espionage affair and the failure of talks in Geneva the previous year.

At Reykjavik Reagan sought to include human rights, Jewish and dissident emigration, and Soviet intervention in Afghanistan in the talks. However, Gorbachev sought to limit discussions solely to arms control. In the aftermath of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, the Soviets accepted the double-zero proposal for eliminating INF weapons from Europe. The Soviets also proposed a complete ballistic missile ban by 1996. The U.S. countered with a proposal to eliminate 50 per cent of ballistic missiles--once the controversial Strategic Defence Initiative (SDI) had been tested and shared, the rest could be eliminated.

The negotiations failed because of Gorbachev's last-minute insistence on linking the SDI program to any agreement on eliminating intermediate-range nuclear forces in Europe and reducing NATO tactical nuclear weapons and Warsaw Pact conventional forces. Reagan and the American delegation refused to negotiate over SDI research and the meeting adjourned with no agreement. Nevertheless, participants and observers refer to the summit as an enormous breakthrough which eventually facilitated the INF Treaty, signed in Washington on December 8, 1987.