The World - News from Aug. 1, 1986

The Soviet Union is willing to accept China’s position on a longstanding border dispute along two rivers in northeastern Asia, East European diplomats said in Peking. They said a speech by Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev on Monday in Vladivostok marked a crucial shift in Moscow’s position on the border river issue, which led to military clashes in March, 1969. “The official border might pass along the main ship channel,” Gorbachev said. Moscow had insisted in the past that the border ran along the Chinese bank of the Amur and Ussuri rivers, which determine the boundary of northeastern China and Siberia.