End Noriega Talks, Aide Quotes Bush

Vice President George Bush has urged the Reagan Administration to break off talks with Panama’s Gen. Manuel A. Noriega, Bush’s top aide said today.

“The Administration sources who suggested that the vice president favors ending the negotiations and bringing the envoy back to Washington are essentially correct,” Craig Fuller, Bush’s chief of staff, said through a spokesman today.

Fuller referred to a Washington Post report that quoted unidentified Administration sources as saying Bush recommended that the State Department end talks with Noriega about a deal under which the Panamanian military leader, who has been indicted by two Florida grand juries, would relinquish power in Panama.

Deal With Noriega

Bush spokesman Stephen Hart said he had no information on the Administration’s response to Bush’s recommendation, which was made Thursday at a high-level meeting of U.S. officials dealing with the Panama crisis.

The newspaper said its sources advised that for the present, Michael G. Kozak, deputy assistant secretary of state for inter-American affairs, will not be instructed to end contacts with Noriega.

The Administration is said to be offering to drop the drug charges against Noriega if he agrees to give up power--a proposal that has touched off a political furor and prompted the Senate to go on record this week in opposition.

Bush, who has clinched the Republican presidential nomination, on Wednesday compared drug traffickers to terrorists and said he would not bargain with them either in the United States or in foreign countries.

Move to Distance Himself

His statement was widely interpreted as a move to distance himself from President Reagan’s handling of the Noriega matter and improve his standing in the polls in which he trails Democrat Michael S. Dukakis.

The vice president has come under attack by Democrats who say the Administration’s claim of being anti-drugs is belied by the attempt to cut a deal with Noriega.