DENUNCIATION OF FORCE Soviet Union And Bonn Talk

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32166, 9 December 1969, Page 17

DENUNCIATION OF FORCE Soviet Union And Bonn Talk

(N.Z.P^4.-Reut«r—Copyright? i BONN, December 8. Talks will start in Moscow today on mutual renunciation of force by the Soviet Union and West Germany. It is the first tangible sign of success for an energetic drive by the new Government in Bonn to improve relations with East Europe.

Soviet readiness to negotiate on an exchange of declarations was indicated here yesterday by the Ambassador (Mr Semyon Tsarapkin).

The Soviet Foreign Minister (Mr Andrei Gromyko) will lead the Soviet side, and

the West German Ambassador to Russia (Dr Helmut Allardt) will head his country’s team a West German Embassy spokesman said in Moscow.

The talks follow three years of West German efforts to persuade Moscow and its allies- to discuss the nonaggression issue.

But the West German and Kremlin positions remained far apart

Christian Democrat Govern-7nents-4ncluding that of Dr Kiesinger—refused to yield on five basic Soviet demands. These were legal recognition by Bonn of East Germany. acceptance of all postwar European borders, recognition of West Berlin as a separate entity, abandonment of all claims to nuclear weapons and declaration as null

and void of the 1938 Munich agreement ceding Czechoslovakia’s Sudetenland to Nazi Germany.

The new Government of Chancellor Willy Brandt promised more flexibility of these issues when taking office.

It also earned the cautious praise of the Warsaw Pact summit meeting in Moscow last week, when leaders of the seven East European allies in a communique noted as a “positive step” West Germany’s recent signing of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

The pact meeting was believed to have been mainly called to arrive at a common attitude towards the Brandt Government’s overtures to the East, which also include offers of talks with Poland and East Berlin. Observers noted that in the guarded Warsaw Pact encouragement of Bonn's moves, the communique made no mention of any pre-condi-tions, although the Communist allies said all states should establish equal relations with East Germany according to international law. Two States The Brandt Government—unlike its predecessors—acknowledges the existence of two German States. But It demes East Berlin recognition in international law, arguing that a special re-

latiohship exists between the two states inside the Ger, man nation. Informed sources said that the West German Foreign Ministry has a draft of a possible.agreement ready as a basis for discussion, but it was not known whether Mr Allardt was presenting this today. Europe’s Tension The German problem the core of East-West efforts to reduce tension in Europe, and the progress of the Moscow talks will be closely observed in the West as a test of the Kremlin’s readiness for detente. North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (N.A.T.0.) leaders indicated last week that Moscow’s stand on bilateral attempts at relaxation would have a bearing on their attitude to the Warsaw Pact’s call for an all-European security conference. The 15-member N.A.T.O. alliance made it clear it was using progress in East-West contacts and negotiations as a yardstick of Communist sincerity. Contacts include Western efforts to ease the Berlin situation, Bonn’s overtures to East Berlin, Moscow and Warsaw, the American-Soviet Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (S.AL.T.), talks on arms control on the sea-bed, and new moves to outlaw chemical and germ warfare.