Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, July 18, 1990 TAG: 9007180112
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: STATE
SOURCE: The New York Times
DATELINE: PARIS LENGTH: Medium
The German assurances to Poland that the current border will not be changed after German unification were worked out during a one-day meeting of the "two plus four" group, which was organized by the foreign ministers of the two Germanys and the four World War II Allies - the United States, the Soviet Union, Britain and France - to deal with the international aspects of German unification.
The accord on the German-Polish border was widely anticipated in the wake of Tuesday's landmark agreement between the Soviet president, Mikhail Gorbachev and the West German chancellor, Helmut Kohl, in which Gorbachev dropped his longstanding opposition to the membership of a united Germany in NATO.
And indeed, the Soviet-German breakthrough seemed to propel all the parties gathered in Paris on Tuesday into a quickly reached compromise on how to assure the Poles that the present East German-Polish border along the Oder and Neisse rivers will not be altered.
Before the meeting, at which the Poles accepted the pledges on the border, Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher of West Germany privately assured Poland's foreign minister, Krzysztof Skubiszewski, that a united Germany would sign a new economic treaty guaranteeing fulfillment of all business contracts between Poland and East German companies that might soon be out of business.
Skubiszewski told reporters that "there was indeed a problem prior to this meeting" but "we have received the reassurance that the border treaty would be concluded as soon as possible after unification."
"Language has been decided that is entirely satisfactory," he added.
In the wake of the rapid-fire agreements, the six foreign ministers gathered in Paris said they will now be able to meet in Moscow on Sept. 12 to draft a final settlement that would terminate all the four-power rights and responsibilities over Germany and Berlin that grew out of the Allies' occupation of Germany at the end of World War II.
That proposed settlement will be submitted for endorsement to a summit meeting of the 35-nation Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe.
The meeting is scheduled for Paris on Nov. 19, provided a treaty reducing conventional arms in Europe is completed by then.
Once the Allied rights and responsibilities have been dissolved, fully sovereign East and West Germanys will go ahead with plans to conduct all-German elections Dec. 2 and proceed with unification.
"We can trust the German people in both parts of Germany. They have proven their commitment to peace and to create a state that will not threaten others," said Soviet foreign minister Eduard Shevardnadze.
Tuesday's Polish-German accord was worked out after the two Germanys agreed to a set of five principles confirming the border and after they promised to conclude a formal border treaty with Poland "within the shortest possible time" after unification.
U.S. officials said the five principles regarding the Polish border accepted by the East and West German foreign ministers were the following:
After a final settlement is signed, a united Germany will remove from its laws any language suggesting that the Polish-German border is provisional.
The area of a united Germany will consist only of Berlin and what is now the territory of East and West Germany.
The parliament of a united Germany will confirm the Oder-Neisse line in a treaty with Poland "in the shortest possible time" after unification.
A united Germany will forswear any territorial claims.
The four Allied powers agree to serve in effect as witnesses that these commitments will be fulfilled.
by CNB