MOSCOW — The resignation of Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard A. Shevardnadze has rekindled Western fears that changes in the Kremlin's foreign policy in recent years might be too good to last.
Although President Mikhail S. Gorbachev reassured foreign governments again Friday that Soviet policies would remain unchanged, senior diplomats assessing Shevardnadze's departure see serious dangers that stem, first of all, from the domestic turmoil here.
"Political instability at home makes for a weak foreign policy--that is axiomatic," a West European ambassador commented here. "Certainly, the dimensions of the Soviet economic crisis will mean instability for several years, and the drama of Shevardnadze's departure makes that all the clearer. The Soviet Union's international posture will change."
But the changes are more likely to come over time, not immediately, for they affect the foundations of foreign policy and the way in which it is formulated more than issues of the moment, according to diplomats and Soviet foreign affairs analysts. And the character and scope of those changes depend on resolution of the present crisis.
"The United States can probably still look for help in the current gulf crisis," another European ambassador remarked, "but not the next crisis, wherever it is. The present arms agreements will be concluded, signed and ratified, but the next will be tougher going. The summit with President Bush in February will go smoothly, but the next summit could prove very difficult.
"The point is that the transformation of Soviet foreign policy of the past five years was due to the overall political shift here, to \o7 perestroika \f7 and \o7 glasnost. \f7 Now, we appear to be heading toward substantial changes domestically--Shevardnadze's resignation is a clear signal of that--and this most likely means foreign policy changes."
Soviet officials sought again Friday to reassure the international community that "new political thinking," as Moscow calls its foreign policy under Gorbachev, is "immutable."
"This line of the Soviet Union will remain unchanged," Vladimir F. Petrovsky, a first deputy foreign minister, said of the present foreign policy. "All suppositions, guesses and hopes for changes in Soviet foreign policy are groundless."
Petrovsky and other Soviet officials contended Friday, in arguments directed both to their own countrymen and to the rest of the world, that not only can there be no return to the Kremlin's previous foreign policies but that the present approach is the only one that meets the country's needs.
