NEW SOVIET PROPOSALS

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 28793, 14 January 1959, Page 11

NEW SOVIET PROPOSALS

Rejection By Adenauer

(N.Z. Press Association—Copyright) BONN, January 12. The West German Chancellor (Dr. Adenauer) today rejected the Russian proposals tor a German peace treaty and called tor free elections in West and East Germany. He made his remarks at a meeting of the Parliamentary Christian Democratic Party, according to a party spokesman quoted by the British United Press. Dr Adenauer said he believed Moscow would not have “laid their demands on the table with such brutal force’* if a section of public opinidh in Germany had not showed itself willing for negotiations with the East German regime. “German policy must therefore return to- clarity,’* he said. By this he meant, said the news agency, that political parties and public opinion as a whole must retain the solid policy of reunification only through free elections. Reuter reported that Dr. Adenauer had said the next steps must be co-ordinated with West Germany’s allies, and with the neutral nations also addressed by the Soviet Union. The agency quoted the spokesman as saying the Foreign Minister (Dr. von Brentano) had told the meeting that to reject the Soviet draft outright would not ease the Berlin situation, but had to be done without being afraid of violence. At the same time it was necessary to say there should be negotiations on the recent proposals made by the Western Powers and West Germany in their Notes to the Soviet Union. Neutralisation He said the draft excluded German reunification, and would impose neutralisation on Germany for an unlimited period, and would mean the destruction of the six-nation common market. The news service of the Social Democrats, the main Opposition party, said that the Soviet proposals could not be accepted as they stood, but that a mere “no” was not enough. The Note must be examined for a constructive basis of discussion. In West Berlin today Mr Willy Brandt was re-elected Mayor at the first sitting of the city’s new Parliament He was the only candidate.