Berlin Air Route Claim Rejected

Press, Volume CI, Issue 29746, 13 February 1962, Page 13

Berlin Air Route Claim Rejected

IN Z.P. A.-Reuter—Copyright) BONN, February 11. Royal Air Force planes will fly through the Berlin air corridors tomorrow at altitudes which Soviet authorities have tried to reserve.

A British Embassy spokesman, questioned about the Soviet claim to altitudes up to 7500 feet on the Hanover and Hamburg corridors for about two and a half hours tomorrow morning. said:

“The pattern will be as It was on Friday.” On that occasion R.A.F. transport aircraft flew to Berlin at heights which the Soviet Union had also tried to reserve.

No confirmation was available from the British Embassy or from R.A.F. headquarters jg Germany that the RAF. would stage a total of nine flights to Berlin tomorrow. A report that the United States Air Force would make 18 flights was also unconfirmed.

French military aircraft would also take part in tomorrow’s flight* to and from Berlin, informed sources said.

Allied Reasoning The Associated Pres* said the Allies considered they were not Just fighting about a technicality. Informed source* said they reasoned that giving way tomorrow for three hours and 23 minutes would only be encouragement to the Soviet Union to take a bigger slice of sir corridor time and space next time. This could go on until the Soviet Union could interfere any time it wished with Allied air traffic through the corridors A* the question of Western access to Berlin was the vital point in any Berlin settlement. it was Important for the Allies not to give anything away just as East and West are probing the possibilities of negotiations, sources said, the agency reported. It said Allied controllers at the Air Safety Centre had told the Soviet Union that it must abide by the fourPower rule, in force for the last 17 years, that Individual flights must be notified through the centre and cleared for safety. The idee of "block booking” of portions of the corridors could not be accepted.