Accusation Of German Menace

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31086, 15 June 1966, Page 17

Accusation Of German Menace

(N.Z.P.A. Reuter—Copyright) HELSINKI, June 14. The Soviet Premier, Mr Alexei Kosygin, last night attacked West Germany’s military policies, calling them a menace to peace.

In the age of missiles and J nuclear techniques, nations and governments could not hope for peace if they did not fight for it actively, he declared. The strained situation was getting worse because influential circles in West Germany were demanding foreign territory and a return to the 1937 borders, as well as demanding nuclear weapons. Mr Kosygin, who arrived yesterday on a five-day official visit, was speaking at a welcoming banquet at Helsinki’s Presidential palace. The Soviet Prime Minister said that the international situation has rapidly worsened—“because of armed aggression against the Vietnamese people.”

1 “Such measures,” he said, “create general opposition and increase determination of peoples to end this threat against world peace.” Mr Kosygin had earlier hailed Soviet-Finnish friendship, co-operation and mutual confidence. Finns gave the Soviet leader a silent, unenthusiastic welcome when he arrived, and Mr Kosygin himself only relaxed his characteristic tight-lipped expression briefly as he clambered down from a red-and-white train at Helsinki’s central station. A crowd of about 800 Finns in and outside the station greeted him with stony silence broken only by scattered applause and cheering from Russian spectators.