Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, May 6, 1990 TAG: 9005060026
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: BONN, WEST GERMANY LENGTH: Medium
"The Cold War is over. Our planet, the world, Europe, are now embarking on a new road," Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze said after the nearly seven-hour meeting.
West German Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher read a declaration by the nations that set a timetable for further talks, with a session in June in Berlin, in July in Paris and in September in Moscow.
It was the first top-level unification session among the Germanys and the Allies - the United States, Soviet Union, Britain and France - which split Germany into two countries 45 years ago.
The diplomats also agreed to invite Polish Foreign Minister Krzysztof Skubiszewski to the Paris session, when border issues will be discussed, Genscher said.
Poland has expressed fears over possible German claims to territory that belonged to Germany before World War II, and Poland will have the right to address all related issues, the declaration said.
U.S. Secretary of State James Baker, appearing at a joint news conference with the other diplomats after the meeting, emphasized that Germans of the new nation should make their own decisions.
Otherwise, he said, the Allies would be "planting seeds of future instability."
Asked about such touchy issues as the size of a new German army and how close it might be deployed to Poland and the Soviet Union, he said: "Ultimately, the fundamental decision with respect to any nation's military forces is going to be up to that nation."
Genscher reiterated a pledge that the new nation would renounce nuclear, chemical and biological weapons. But he also rebuffed continued Soviet objections to NATO membership for a united Germany, the main sticking point in the talks.
Shevardnadze repeated in statement Friday that a solution was possible.
"I'm optimistically inclined," he said. "I think we shall succeed on all of these matters in finding mutually acceptable solutions. That is the premise upon which we proceed."
"Are there any serious divergences? I don't think we should dramatize. This is normal around negotiations," he said. "The Soviet delegation, the Soviet leadership, intend to work constructively in order to accelerate the vitally important historical process of building German unity."
The meeting was held behind closed doors in the West German Foreign Ministry.
Baker set the tone in a speech that said the work of the four powers should be limited to relinquishing their 45 years of control over Berlin.
"We face the challenge of rising above the past," he said in comments distributed to reporters before the meeting. "We engage in an act of reconciliation - of a people too long separated, of a continent too long divided."
According to a British official who briefed reporters on the condition of anonymity, Shevardnadze "accepted entirely the self-determination of the German people."
Neither Shevardnadze nor Baker dwelled on Germany's Nazi past.
"We don't want a discussion on obsolete views," the British official quoted Shevardnadze as saying.
by CNB