SOME OPTIMISM ARISES: LATEST KREMLIN TALK

Greymouth Evening Star, 25 August 1948, Page 5

SOME OPTIMISM ARISES: LATEST KREMLIN TALK

(Recd. 10.30 a.m.) LONDON, August 24. i There is some optimism for a settlement of the German crisis following yesterday’s Kremlin talks, and the tension between the East and West has eased in Berlin. 1 The Associated Press correspondent at Moscow quotes a high source as saying that the current four-Power talks had a fair chance of resulting in a solid agreement. He believed the chances far better than before the Western envoys saw Mr Stalin yesterday. | In Paris, French Foreign Office sources said that yesterday s talks had saved the East-West negotiations from breaking down. 3 hey thought there was still the '"will to negotiate. j A British Foreign Office spokesman said that some time might elapse before the Western Powers formulated their attitude on yesterday’s conference. '

Reuter’s Washington correspondent says the State Department confirmed that the Moscow talks would continue. No date has yet been fixed for another meeting. The Associated Press Berlin cori espondent says that tension has eased as Moscow reports suggested new hopes for a settlement of the 61 days’ old crisis. Red Army patrols were quiet along Potsdamer Platz. The British said they had abandoned their plans to erect barbed-wire between their part of the square and the Russian side.

Five Soviet zone German policemen fled into British-occupied territory at Gifdorn, Hanover, today. They said they were the vanguard of a large number fleeing from the Soviet zone police purge. “I think we have made a little progress,” said the United States Ambassador in Moscow (Lieutenant-General W. Bedell Smith), after Western envoys had conferred with Mr Stalin and Mr Molotov at the Kremlin last night. General Bedell Smith told the Moscow correspondent of the Associated Press that there would be “more meetings.” He added: “I am never an optimist. I hope for the best and expect the worst.” Main Obstacles The diplomatic correspondent of The Times, writing before last night’s meeting, said: “There seems little doubt that if agreement could be reached on the currency and Frankfurt questions the Russians would be prepared to lift the Berlin blockade, as the Western allies insist, and the Western allies would be willing to reopen the whole question of Germany's future at a four-Power, conference, perhaps of the Foreign Ministers, as

the Russians have plainly shown they wish. The reopening of trade and traffic between the Western and Soviet zones would follow automatically.

” “There is nothing, however, to suggest that the Russians have in any way weakened over the Frankfurt issue, which is closely linked with the currency question. The Russians claim that the summoning of the West German Constituent Assembly by the Western allies invalidates their juridical right to take part in four-Power control of Berlin. Therefore, they maintain, the. Russian Military Government in Germany has the right to introduce the Soviet-zone mark as the sole currency for the whole of the city, including the Western sectors, without the Western allies having a say in its issue.