On Afghanistan, Reagan told his audience, "Now the Soviets say they have had enough."

"But let me say here that the next few momths will be no time for complacency, no time to sit back and congratulate ourselves. The Soviets have rarely before--and not at all in more than three decades--left a country, once occupied. They have often promised to leave, but rarely in their history, and then only under pressure from the West, have they actually done it."

Later in the forum Reagan told what he conceded was a "very cynical" joke as part of his response to a question about the Middle East at a world affairs forum here.

After pledging efforts to secure talks between Israel and its Arab neighbors, Reagan said:

"I can't resist telling you a little joke. It's kind of cynical--very cynical in a matter of fact--about the Middle East."

In the joke, a scorpion comes to a creek and asks a frog to carry him across it, because scorpions can't swim.

The frog says, "Why, you'd sting me if I did."

The scorpion responds, "That'd be silly because if I stung you and you died, I'd drown."

"Well, that made sense to the frog so he said, 'get on,' and started ferry him across and in midstream the scoprion stung him," the president said.

As both were dying, the frog asked the scorpion, "Why did you do that--now we're both going to die."

"And the scorpion said, 'This is the Middle East,'" the president said.