Austria has no objections to inclusion in the peace treaty being drafted by the Big Four deputies of a clause safeguarding racial and religious rights and barring discrimination, Chancellor Leopold Figl said today.
His statement was in direct contradiction to that made lest Friday by Austrian Foreign Minister Karl Gruber, who said that such a clause would constitute undesirable discrimination between Jews and non-Jews.
Figl told a press conference, attended by Gruber, that the constitution unanimoualy adopted by the Austrian Parliament last year was based on the principles of democracy and freedom of the individual, irrespective of race, sex, birth, language or religion. The Austrian Government agrees to the incorporation of these principles in the treaty, he added.
Gruber told the assembled correspondents that there had been no anti-Jewish discrimination in Austria before the Anschluss.
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