Impasse in Germany

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 33067, 7 November 1972, Page 14

Impasse in Germany

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter—Copyright) EAST BERLIN, November 5. The negotiations between East and West Germany on a treaty which would restore their relations to normal have run into difficulties. The leader of the West German delegation (the Secretary of State, Mr Egon Bahr), emerged, looking harassed, from the first day of the seventh round of the negotiations, and said: “We have discovered no new land, but have fallen into real difficulties,” He added that he could not go into details, but political observers believe that the core of the problem remains the basic differences between the two sides on the status of their eventual relations. East Germany has insisted that relations should be at full ambassadorial level, as is normal under international law between independent sovereign States, whereas West Germany would prefer something short of full diplomatic recognition, to keep alive the possibility of eventual reunification. East Germany rules out any idea of a “special interGerman relationship.”