By August 1971, however, East and West had clearly decided, for various reasons, that this agreement was desirable. The context was the broader interest in improving Western security, the Mutual and Balanced Force Needs Talks (MBFR), the Middle East negotiations, and China-US relations. At the Berlin talks, the ambassadors of the United States and the Soviets accelerated the pace, and a draft text was approved on 18 August. The Federal Foreign Office considered that the agreement met the essential requirements of the Western Allies, although it strengthened the status of the GDR and tacitly acknowledged that the Berlin Wall would remain here. Douglas-Home called it a “good deal”; The prime minister disagreed, although accepting his signature “may well be right, because we are ready to acknowledge the realities.” It could also improve the political atmosphere and pave the way for what would become the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE) in 1973. The United States and Britain refused to accept Soviet demands, arguing that a free Berlin without guaranteed access to the West would soon be controlled by communist East Germany. Multiple attempts to find a diplomatic solution have failed. In September 1959, US-Soviet talks were held at Camp David, but no agreement was reached, and a summit in Paris in May 1960 collapsed following the so-called U-2 affair triggered by the downing of an American spy plane over the Soviet Union. The Soviet guarantee of free and preferential civil traffic between the western sectors of Berlin and the Federal Republic of Germany is a central element of the agreement and a significant improvement. Fifty years ago, the ambassadors representing the 4 occupying powers in Germany – France, Great Britain, the United States and the USSR – signed an agreement on Berlin. These included documents on access, communication and the respective positions of the FRG (West Germany) and the GDR (East Germany) in relation to Berlin. Although neither the West nor the East got everything they expected from the negotiations, the fact that the agreement was signed came as a surprise to many involved. When the new administration of US President John F.
Kennedy took office in 1961, the situation in Berlin worsened. At the Vienna Summit in June 1961, Khrushchev repeated his threat that if no Berlin agreement was reached by December, the Soviet Union would sign a separate treaty with East Germany (an agreement that West Berlin Mayor Willy Brandt called Khrushchev a denigration of “marrying himself”). Kennedy made it clear that Berlin was of the utmost strategic importance to the United States and that free access to the city should be preserved. The Treaty of Berlin (officially the treaty between Austria-Hungary, France, Germany, Great Britain and Ireland, Italy, Russia and the Ottoman Empire to settle affairs in the East) was signed on July 13, 1878. [1] [2] After the Russian victory against the Ottoman Empire in the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-1878, the great powers restructured the map of the Balkan region. They cancelled out some of the extreme gains russia claimed in the provisional treaty of San Stefano, but the Ottomans lost their most important possessions in Europe. It was one of the three main peace treaties in the period following the Congress of Vienna in 1815. It was the final act of the Congress of Berlin (June 13 – July 13, 1878) and included Great Britain and Ireland, Austria-Hungary, France, Germany, Italy, Russia and the Ottoman Empire. The German Otto von Bismarck was the president and the dominant figure.
Part I. General provisions 1. The four Governments will endeavour to promote the elimination of tensions and the prevention of complications in the area concerned. 2. The four Governments, taking into account their obligations under the Charter of the United Nations, agree that there shall be no use or threat of use of force in the territory and that disputes shall be settled exclusively by peaceful means. (3) The four governments shall respect each other`s individual and common rights and obligations, which shall remain unchanged. 4. The four Governments agree that, notwithstanding differences in law, the situation which has developed in that territory and as defined in this Agreement and in the other agreements referred to in this Agreement may not be unilaterally altered.
4. The four Governments agree that, notwithstanding the various legal opinions, the situation that has developed in this area and as defined in this Agreement and in the other agreements referred to in this Agreement may not be unilaterally altered. In the early months of 1971, Secretary of State Douglas-Home`s briefing insisted that the Soviet proposals on Berlin were a “deliberate attempt to undermine the Western position” and that Allied authority should be maintained. In June, the West`s insistence that the idea of a European security conference without an acceptable Berlin agreement was a false start seemed to be leading to a standstill. On September 3, 1971, the parties made a breakthrough in the negotiations. The main objective of this round of talks was to promote practical arrangements that would improve the living conditions of West Berliners and remove obstacles to irritation. The Four Powers Agreement on Berlin established the following: These treaties were part of a series of revolutionary international agreements that were seen by some as a formalization of the division of Europe during the Cold War, while others saw them as the beginning of the process that led to the end of the Cold War.M. E. Sarotte wrote in 2001 that “.. Despite all the fears, the two sides managed to conclude many negotiations through the dialogue on détente. [2] The Four Powers Agreement on Berlin, also known as the Berlin Agreement or the Four Powers Agreement on Berlin, was concluded on September 3, 1971 by the four Allied war powers, represented by their ambassadors. The four Foreign Ministers Alec Douglas-Home of the United Kingdom, Andrei Gromyko of the Soviet Union, Maurice Schumann of France and William P. Rogers of the United States signed the Agreement and brought it into force in Berlin on 3 June 1972.
[1] The agreement was not a treaty and did not require formal ratification. The governments of the United States and the United Kingdom seemed to not know how to react to these developments. The Federal Foreign Office spent a lot of time analysing possible reasons for the Soviet willingness to negotiate, revealing considerable differences of opinion between London and the embassy in Moscow. The four-page discussions on Berlin continued, with the Russians proving to be generally tough interlocutors. By reaffirming the existence of the rights and obligations of the four powers for the future of Berlin and Germany as a whole (which the Soviets claimed to have abolished following the Berlin Crisis of 1959-1962), the agreement laid the foundations for a series of East-West agreements that ushered in the period commonly known as détente. It has also restored connections between the two parts of Berlin, improved travel and communication between the two parts of the city, and made many improvements to residents of the western sectors. With the Allied agreement, the basic treaty (in force in June 1973) recognized two German states, and both countries undertook to respect each other`s sovereignty. In accordance with the provisions of the Treaty, diplomatic missions should be exchanged and commercial, touristic, cultural and communicative relations should be established. Under the Agreement and the Treaty, the two German states acceded to the United Nations in September 1973. After the entry into force of the agreement, the Soviet Union used this vague wording to loosen West Berlin`s relations with the Federal Republic of Germany.However, the agreement contributed significantly to the reduction of tensions between East and West over Berlin as well as to the expansion of contacts between the two sides of Germany. As such, he made an important contribution to the process that led to the reunification of Germany in 1990. Although cold war policies made it difficult to reach an agreement, they also paved the way for the quadripartite agreement. The Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968 caused severe East-West cold, but as always after a shock, a reorganization of relations on both sides was necessary for economic and geopolitical reasons. .
