The World - News from Oct. 23, 1988

The Polish government said that Solidarity leader Lech Walesa had refused a fourth meeting with a top minister to prepare for talks on the country’s future. Walesa denied he had directly rejected any offer to meet Minister of Internal Affairs Czeslaw Kiszczak, but said he had refused to bow to a demand by the Communist authorities to discuss changing the banned union’s team for the round-table talks, which were to have begun in mid-October. Both sides said prospects for agreement were dim. Kiszczak met Walesa in August--during the worst strikes since Solidarity was suppressed in 1981--to prepare for the talks, intended to help forge a national coalition to end economic crisis.