Soviets Got No Key Aid Offer, Genscher Says
PARIS — West Germany made no specific aid offer to the Soviet Union to gain Moscow’s acceptance of NATO membership for a united Germany, the West German foreign minister said today.
Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev on Monday dropped objections to a united Germany’s membership in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, one of the last big hurdles to unification.
The West German official, Hans-Dietrich Genscher, acknowledged the two countries reached agreement on cooperation without West Germany giving specific promises to help the weak Soviet economy.
“We reached agreement with the Soviet Union on long-term cooperation, but we have not discussed any numbers,†Genscher said as seven-nation talks on German unification opened in Paris.
On Monday, in the Soviet region of Stavropol, Gorbachev and West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl also agreed to limit the army of a united Germany to 370,000 men.
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