Both Sides Seem Confident Arms Pact Will Be Ready

GENEVA — The United States and the Soviet Union ended three days of pre-summit talks Tuesday with both sides appearing confident that a treaty scrapping intermediate-range nuclear weapons will be ready for signing next month.

President Reagan and Mikhail S. Gorbachev are scheduled to hold the summit in Washington from Dec. 7-10.

“A great deal of progress has been made over the past three days,” said an American source, who requested anonymity. He described the talks as “very good and positive.”

Negotiators ended the sessions “with a great deal of work having been accomplished, as agreed at the Oct. 30 meeting” between Secretary of State George P. Shultz and Eduard A. Shevardnadze, the Soviet foreign minister, the source said.

After that meeting, the two governments announced the summit plans and said the medium-range treaty would be signed. They also said Reagan and the Soviet leader hoped for another summit in 1988 at which they could sign an agreement on reducing long-range nuclear forces by 50%.

Yuli M. Vorontsov, chief Soviet negotiator, said in a Soviet television interview that work on the intermediate-range treaty should be completed by Nov. 23. He said the document was 120 pages long.

Vorontsov was interviewed just before a final 3 1/2-hour session with Max M. Kampelman, head of the U.S. delegation.

A report of the interview by Tass, the official Soviet news agency, quoted Vorontsov as saying that several difficulties arose late in negotiation.

He said American delegates proposed that the warheads, guidance systems and rocket motors from its cruise missiles be kept intact when the missiles are destroyed.

“We asked the Americans what they are proposing to destroy and this turned out to be the missiles’ casing and wings,” he said, according to the Tass report. “This is, of course, not serious and we shall press for a real destruction of these missiles.”

The Tass report did not make clear why Vorontsov mentioned Nov. 23 as the target date.