West Berliners Warned By Ulbricht Regime

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 31914, 15 February 1969, Page 13

West Berliners Warned By Ulbricht Regime

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter —Copyright.)

EAST BERLIN, February 14.

The East German Government has warned the 2,200,000 people of West Berlin that if the West German Presidential election is held, as planned, in their city on March 5, “it could not be without consequences.”

A Government declaration addressed to the population of West Berlin, and released shortly after the disclosure that the Warsaw Pact deputy-Defence Ministers had met in East Berlin, said: “The danger spreading out from West Berlin, as an international disturbance centre, is growing, and the consequences are bound to rebound on the city.”

The declaration added: “Do not overlook the culprits if you should be affected by the measures we will have to take in the interests of justice and peace, and the interests of West Berliners.”

There were immediate fears in West Germany that the Warsaw Pact defence chiefs were planning a repetition of the extensive military manoeuvres of 1965, which disrupted the Western overland access routes to West Berlin.

The manoeuvres were held in retaliation against West

Germany’s insistence on holding a Bundestag (Lower House) plenary session in Berlin.

Then, as now, the East Germans and their Soviet allies objected to the gathering of West German Parliamentarians as “an unlawful provocation." The Communists claim that the West German Federal authorities have no right to use West Berlin, which, they say, has special political status and is in East German territory.

The British Prime Minister (Mr Harold Wilson) is due to make a flying visit to West Berlin today and President Richard Nixon is expected there on February 27. In Bonn, the Soviet Ambassador to West Germany (Mr Tsarapkin) called on the West German Government not to hold its Presidential elections in West Berlin as planned. The ambassador, who was received by the Chancellor (Dr Kurt Kiesinger) at his own request, handed the West German leader a document which stated that the meeting of the Presidential Electoral College in West Berlin contravened the city’s fourPower status. The Soviet Union has al-

ready protested to the three allies responsible for West Berlin—the United States, Britain and France—against the election plan. The Chancellor told Mr Tsarapkin that West Germany's decision was supported by the three Powers. In Washington, the State Department has brushed aside an East German protest Note over Berlin, saying: “The United States does not accept communications from entities it does not recognise."