SOVIET CHARGES

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 68, Issue 142, 29 March 1948, Page 3

SOVIET CHARGES

Repudiation by U.S. and Britain CONTROL IN GERMANY (N.Z.P. A.—Copyright). LONDON, March 27. The British Government in a Note handed to the Soviet Ambassador has repudiated the Soviet . accusations that the Western Powers have violated and are still violating the Potsdam Agreement,, and are disrupting the four-Power Control Council machinery in Germany. / The Note states that the Soviet Government is'chiefly to blame for the failure to agree upon the running of Germany as a unit. The United States to-day rejected the Russian protest that America, Britain and France had broken agreements for the four-Power control of Germany. The United States in turn blamed the Soviet Union and its satellite nations for splitting Europe in two. The United States rejection was contained in a Note sent by the Assistant Secretary of State (Mr Armour) to the Soviet Ambassador (Mr Alexander Panyushkin). The Note stated: “Under the guise of reparations Russia has taken into its possession in gigantic trusts the major industrial establishments in the Eastern zone, accouning for 25 to 30 per cent of h oal etremaining industrial productive capacity. Basic human rights are being denied the population, while concentration camps are being usd anew for individual's; unwilling to accept this new totalitarianism.”

Fifteen per cent of the British Control Commission will be shifted, as planned last November, from Berlin to decentralised headquarters in the British zone during April and May, according to an official statement, Three hundred people, including officials their wives and children, will be affected. A staff of 200 will remain in Berlin.

A commission spokesman said “the moves have nothing to do with Marshal Sokolovsky’s walk-out from the Allied Control Council on March 20.”