WEST FRAMES POLICY

Press, Volume LXXXV, Issue 25810, 23 May 1949, Page 7

WEST FRAMES POLICY

Four-Power Talks On Germany MINISTERS MEET IN PARIS (N.Z. Press Association—Copyright) (Rec. 8 p.m.) LONDON, May 21. “The /hree Western Foreign Ministers met in Paris to-day to prepare a common front"for the Foreign Ministers’ conference on Monday on the German peace settlement,” says the Paris correspondent of the Associated- Press;. “Mr Bevin, Mr Acheson, and Mr Schuman had the task of eliminating several differences of view which their advisers had been unable to settle in a week of talks. Official sources emphasised that the differences were not serious. The Ministers expect to meet 4gain to-morrow. “Britain suggested to the United States and France that the four-Power conference should be secret, but it is reported that neither the Americans nor the French like the idea. The British view is that a secret conference will block any Russian move to use the conference room as a propaganda forum.” Reuter’s Paris correspondent says that observers agree that there are three major issues for the Council of Foreign Ministers:— (1) Can the Ministers agree on a unified political regime for Germany, and if not can they establish machinery for economic unity while leaving the country pqlitically divided? (2) Will German representatives be allowed to appear before the conference? (3) If the Ministers approved, would the West German leaders agree to talks with representatives of the Com-munist-dominated German People’s Congress of the Russian zone? The correspondent adds that observers believe that a strictly business agreement for a measure of East-West trade is attainable. Russia would welcome this, but the major difficulty seems to be whether Russia would allow her zone to join the Organisation for European Economic Co-oper-ation. The Soviet Foreign Minister (Mr Vyshinsky) and his party arrived in Paris to-day. Account of Soviet Proposals The diplomatic correspondent of the “Sunday Dispatch,” "on information from unimpeachable sources,” claims that the aim behind the proposals which Mr Vyshinsky will submit to the Foreign Ministers’ meeting is an eventual Soviet-German alliance against the Western world. The correspondent says: “Mr Vyshinsky will ask the three Western Foreign Ministers to- agree that:— “(1) The People’s Congress in the Eastern zone should become the political constitution of a unified Germany. “(2) All the Allied occupation armies should be withdrawn. “Moscow believes that this would make it possible to bring all Germany eventually under Communist control and pave the way for a Soviet-Ger-man alliance. The Kremlin has already been sounding German political leaders, industrialists, and former military men in both the Eastern and Western zones, and has promised them that it will be prepared to consider the revision of the German-Polish frontier in favour of a Germany allied to Russia. “The Soviet leaders believe that with the occupation armies out of the way they could infiltrate all Western Germany with their Russian trained and armed German police, militia and other Communist para-military bodies. “Mr Vyshinsky will also table the following additional proposals: “(1) The conclusion of the German peace treaty. “(2> The abolition of the Ruhr Statute and the institution of an international regime for the Ruhr. “(3) A single German currency under four-Power control.” The diplomatic correspondent of the “Sunday Times” says: “Mr Vyshinsky may make a grand gesture at the Foreign Ministers’ talks and accept the Bonn Constitution ' for the whole of Germany. The success or failure of the talks is likely to depend on how greatly the Russians need *a united Germany to secure the resumption of East-West trade, not merely in Germany but throughout Europe. There are signs that this need is very urgent.”