WORKING AGREEMENT BETWEEN POWERS IN BERLIN AND GERMANY

Otago Daily Times, Issue 27112, 21 June 1949, Page 5

WORKING AGREEMENT BETWEEN POWERS IN BERLIN AND GERMANY

Rec. 9 p.m. LONDON, June 20. The Big-Four Foreign Ministers in Paris have reached agreement on a working arrangement between the occupying Powers in Germany. This was announced by a British delegation spokesman after a secret session of the Foreign Ministers’ Council yesterday.

Reuter’s diplomatic correspondent in Paris says the agreement was the first official admission that Gfermany and Berlin are henceforth divided with two separate administrations. This represented acknowledgment for the present that German unity under Four-Power control was not feasible. But if the working agreement was loyally implemented by both sides, Berlin should enjoy normality, which it has not had since the blockade was imposed last summer.

The''British spokesman said that the Ministers were near an agreement on preparation of the Austrian peace treaty.

It is understood that the right of access to Berlin for tfhe Western Powers is specifically guaranteed in the Berlin Agreement. s The United. States delegate spid there would be a private meeting of the Austrian treaty deputies this morning The Ministers held their eighth secre; session yesterday. The discussion lasted three hours, and they will meet again in secret session this afternoon. This meeting will be followed immediately bv a plenary session. A meeting of the committee appointed to draft an official communique on the results of the conference has been called for this afternoon. The British United Press correspondent says that the two-part agreement to be announced to-day will be:— 1. Germany: An acknowledgment that Germany and Berlin are split in two, but an agreement to “ live and let live ” until a final agreement can be reached

2. Austria: Russian abandonment of Yugoslavia's territorial and reparations claims against Austria and acceptance by Russia of a compromise agreement on German assets in Austria. * The Austrian agreement will be in the form of instructions ,to the four deputies, who will begin drafting the final treaty for signature this autumn.