SOVIET VARIES ATTITUDE IN TRAFFIC CONTROLS

Grey River Argus, 19 April 1948, Page 5

SOVIET VARIES ATTITUDE IN TRAFFIC CONTROLS

Developments at Vienna and Berlin

(Rec. 6.55). LONDON, April 17. A British European Airways plane has left Schwechat airport, outside Vienna, for London, after having had one day’s delay as the result of a Russian road blockade. The Russian authorities had, in a letter to the British High Commissioner (General Galloway) demanded that all commercial flights into this British airport outside Vienna should cease forthwith. The Russians said flights from Schwechat increased, tlie British authorities using the airport “in the interests of commercial aviation”. An agreement of July, 1945, provided that the airport would be under control of British armed forces “for the joint use of the British and French armed forces”. A British spokesman said that the flights would continue. The Russians had no grounds for the discontinuance as the agreement did not specify the types of aeroplanes to be used. British) European Airways has been flying a London-Vienna service since the Royal Air Force Transport Command stopped a year ago. A Soviet road post stopped intending Vienna-London air passengers reaching Schwechat, and the passengers returned to Vienna. Passengers, who reached Schwechat from London and Germany could not reach Vienna, and stayed at the airport. Russian sentries demanded the grey four-Power passes which were never necessary before. on the airport road through the Russian zone.

However on Saturday the Soviet guards allowed a bus, from Vienna, carrying the plane’s passengers and crew, to proceed after inspecting the four-Power grey pass.

The British authorities in Vienna have announced that the Russians have lifted all travel restrictions on the road leading from Vienna to Schwechat airport. BERLIN AIR CRASH INQUIRY The Russian authorities, in a letter to the British Inquiry Commission on the Viking-Yak air crash, stated that the Soviet was willing to change its attitude to the inquiry and hear German and American witnesses under certain conditions. The commission received the letter after the investigation was completed. A British spokesman said that the letter was so belated that it could not be taken as a sincere offer to cooperate. Major-General C. D. Browniohn, the British Chief of Staff, said that the Soviet letter was full of misstatements and was unanswerable, because it had already been published in the Soviet-controlled newspapers.

papers. The report of the investigation will be flown to London to-morrow. It is learned that Marshal Sokolosvky has returned to Berlin. He has been in Moscow for the past week for consultations on the handling of the German situation with the Western Powers. The report that the Russians had eased the road restrictions to the American airport at Tullin has been denied. The Russians turned back American troops without the fourPcwer pass. Health officials in the American sector of Berlin said to-day that the Soviet traffic restrictions had held up imports of penicillin, insulin and other life-saving medicines which the United States normally supplied to all parts of the city.

150 Trucks of Parcels Held up in Berlin Post Offices (Rec. 10.20). LONDON, April 17. Major-General Herbert has formally protested to the Soviet Commandant, Major-General Kotikov, against the Soviet’s failure to relieve the parcel post situation. There are 150 railway truck loads of parcels addressed to the Western zones of Germany piled up in the post offices at the present time.