ABSTRACT
The Soviets sought to appear cooperative in efforts to end the Iran-Iraq war, while seeking to expand their influence in both countries at the expense of the West. Regional issues were the one major area of US-Soviet interaction in the period under review. The United States continued to charge the Soviet Union with violations of existing arms control treaties, the most serious of which was the Krasnoyarsk radar, which the United States contended was illegal under the ABM treaty of 1972. The intense political interaction at the highest levels led to increased bilateral contacts in economics, culture, and other arts as the atmosphere of a new detente spread and as bureaucrats on both sides scrambled to come up with agreements that would lend substance to the process of summitry. Items on the list included the release of political prisoners and the granting of permission to emigrate to long-term refuseniks.
