Optimistic hopes that the reparations negotiations here between Israel and the Jewish Conference and West Germany will be concluded in two weeks faded today as the second phase of the negotiations entered their fifth week with three major points still unresolved.
Progress is being made, but slowly, at numerous committee meetings. The task of formulating the points already agreed upon into watertight legal clauses is proceeding so carefully and slowly that it will require many days to complete the job after all disagreements are cleared up.
Meanwhile, Israel and Germany have not yet agreed upon the delivery schedules nor upon the types and quantities of goods to be obtained abroad by Germany for transshipment to Israel. The Claims Conference has not yet accepted the German offer of about $107,000,000 to settle its global claims nor have the Conference and the German delegation straightened out their differences over a legislative program in Germany for individual restitution and indemnification to Nazi victims.
In an effort to reach agreement on the legislative program, which Germany is as anxious as the Jews to see completed, German experts are being sent here from Bonn and even from the debt conference in London. It is reported that Herr L. Wolff, second in command of the German delegation in London, has been ordered to proceed to The Hague.
There is every likelihood that the Conference praesidium will make no decision on acceptance of the German global offer until it becomes clear how far Bonn will go on the legislative program.
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
