The U.S. State Department Saturday rebuffed East Germany in its apparent efforts to be accorded most-favored-nation trade status, despite its stated readiness to make available some $100 million in reparations to Jewish survivors of the Holocaust.
Speaking with reporters in Potsdam, East Germany, Deputy Secretary of State John White-head said that the United States links most-favored-nation status in trade relations to a country’s record on human rights.
It has become increasingly apparent in the last week that East Germany has been seeking a change in its trade status as part of a package that would include assistance to Jewish survivors.
Last Monday, East German leader Erich Honecker met with the leader of West Germany’s Jewish community, Heinz Galinski, to iron out details of a plan that would make 100 million marks ($58 million) available to victims of Nazism.
Responding to reporters’ questions, White-head said it remains up to East Germany to tear down the Berlin Wall, the concrete barrier that has become a symbol of the communist country’s repression of dissidents and others.
Whitehead also noted that there were no plans for a visit to Washington by Honecker.
The East Germany were said to be pressing for such a visit, in order to broaden their base of legitimacy and improve their relations with the United States. It was hoped that a reparations agreement could pave the way.
In a shift of its long-standing policy, East Germany made known last year, and confirmed last Monday, that it was ready to compensate Jewish survivors of the Holocaust.
Negotiations are taking place in the United States between the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany and a delegation headed by East Germany’s ambassador to Washington.
But East Germany has increasingly linked this new policy to possible trade arrangements, which would facilitate its access to the American market.
Top officials in East Germany, including Honecker, repeatedly mentioned that a lack of hard Western currency could be a factor jeopardizing the reparations payments.
On Friday, Whitehead spoke in Potsdam with Foreign Minister Oskar Fischer about the reparations. Whitehead reported that the issue was still “wide open,” with both sides unsure how much would be paid and how the money would be made available to survivors.
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