German Unity Call Talks

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31091, 21 June 1966, Page 15

German Unity Call Talks

(N.Z.P.A. Reuter-Copyright) COLOGNE (West Germany), June 20. Dr. Rainer Barzel, the prominent Christian Democrat whose recent remarks on German reunification took West Germany by surprise, said today he would discuss his proposals with the Party’s executive committee tomorrow.

Dr. Barzel, deputy chairman and Parliamentary floor leader of the Christian Democratic Party, returned to Cologne yesterday from New York where he suggested in a speech last Friday that Soviet troops might stay in a reunited Germany. “If a German speaks his mind on June 17 (anniversary of the 1953 uprising in East Germany), thus reopening the German question from Moscow to Washington, then this is in the interests of the entire German people,” he said. Dr. Barzel also suggested in New York that a reunified Germany could fulfil East Germany’s economic commitment to the Soviet Union for 20 years, with a 5 per cent annual bonus thrown in. WAITING FOR BONN

He said he could go into no further details until he had heard objective arguments in Bonn concerning his proposals, but he would go on

speaking his mind in future. He said he had briefed Chancellor Ludwig Erhard about his speech before leaving for New York. The only Government and Christian Democrat Party reaction to Dr. Barzei’s proposals has been a statement that he was expressing his own personal views. The statement said he had not consulted the party’s executive committee.

The Soviet Union yesterday rejected Dr. Barzei’s proposals in an article in the Soviet Communist Party newspaper, “Pravda,” quoted by Tass news agency.