Berlin signatories ready

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32702, 3 September 1971, Page 15

Berlin signatories ready

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter—Copyright) WEST BERLIN, September 2. Ambassadors of the Bill Four Powers were assembled in West Berlin today for the historic signing of the first EastWest agreement on the divided city. The precise date and time of the signing was still unknown early today but ob-

servers expected it to be about midday. An Allied spokesman rec fused last night to confim that the signing would take place today, but said that he had arranged all press facilities and added: “It will be up to someone else to produce the ambassadors. However, the four ambassadors to divided Germany, in West Berlin, it was officially confirmed.

Diplomatic sources said that announcement of when the agreement would be signed was delayed while the United States, Britain, France and the Soviet Union agreed on an authorised German text. Texts in English, French and Russian were confirmed last week but the German text has to be acceptable to to both East and West Germany and this is taking longer. The Government spokes-

man in Bonn said yesterday that West Germany would probably issue the official English text, which all parties agreed was the mastei version in cases of disputes, if the German translation were not available by the expected time of signing today. The agreement will be signed in the former Allied Control Council building where, the ambassadors o the four victorious war-time Powers laboured for 17 months to produce it. The signing will successfully conclude the first, most important part of an overall Berlin agreement aimed at ending once and for all the tension and uncertainty that has dogged the city since the war. Details to the full text leaked in Bonn and confirmed as essentially correct have established these mains points: The Soviet Union will get a consulate in West Berlin and firm acknowledgement that the city is not an integral part of West Germany. The West Will have unimpeded travel across the 110 miles of East Germany separating West Berlin from West Germany, according to “the simplest, quickest and most privileged treatment known in international practice” and under Soviet guarantee. West Berliners will be able to visit East Berlin and the rest of East Germany, and may be represented by West Germany abroad. Their city’s close links with West Germany are recognised. ,

In the signing ceremony at the huge neo-classical former Prussian Supreme Court, the four ambassadors will be acting not only as envoys to Germany but also as heirs presumptive of the quadripartite Allied Control Council which governed the whole of the country from 1945 to 1948. The last meeting of the council took place on March 20, 1948.