WESTERN EUROPE REVIEW

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP79T00912A001600010002-0
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 13
• Document Creation Date: December 16, 2016
• Document Release Date: November 29, 2004
• Sequence Number: 2
• Publication Date: September 13, 1978
• Content Type: REPORT

Assessment
Western Europe
Review
13 September 1978
Secret
RP WER 78-007
13 September 1978
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WESTERN EUROPE REVIEW
13 September 1978
CONTENTS
West Germany Seeks US Role in Prosecution
of Hijackers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Allied and West German officials have made
little headway in settling the jurisdictional
dispute over who should try the East Germans
responsible for the hijacking late last month
of a Polish airliner.
Norway: Public Airing of Northern Issues . . . . . . 4
The Norwegian Government is taking its posi-
tion on Svalbard and Barents Sea issues to
the public to dispel the impression that it
is weak and ineffective in dealing with Mos-
cow, and to tell the Soviets it is interested
only in reciprocal bargaining on these ques-
tions.
NATO-Greece: Military Reintegration Problems . . . . 8
Greek-Turkish bilateral differences are com-
plicating the reintegration of Greece into
NATO's military side.
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West Germany Seeks US Role in Prosecution of Hijackers
Allied and West German officials have made little
headway in settling the jurisdictional dispute over who
should try the East Germans responsible for the hijacking
late last month of a Polish airliner. US efforts to turn
over responsibility for the prosecution of the hijackers
to West Berlin authorities have been stymied by British
and French concerns over Allied rights, and by West German
fears of complicating inter-German relations. Bonn also
worries that a lenient verdict by Berlin authorities
could damage its efforts to gain international acceptance
of the Bonn antihijacking declaration.
The West German Government faces a dilemma. On the
one hand, it favors a tough line toward the hijackers to
show its support for the Bonn antihijacking declaration
and to counteract recriminations by the Soviet Union,
Poland, and East Germany, which have demanded the
hijackers' extradition. The Allies and the East have
put considerable pressure on West Germany to ensure that
a strict sentence be handed down or that the government
accede to extradition. The West German Bonn Group repre-
sentative Von Braunmuehl expressed shock over the UK
proposal to ensure that the hijackers received a severe
sentence or face extradition.* Von Braunmuehl indicated
that if any of the Allied powers considered extraditing
German nationals to a Communist country, the matter could
cloud bilateral relations between West Germany and the
Allied powers. The West German Government, in the mean-
time, has given assurances that its judiciary is inde-
pendent of political influence and could not be forced
to decide one way or the other.
*The Bonn Group is a four-power consulative working-level group
composed of representatives from the West German Foreign Office
and the three Western Allies, attended, on occasion, by an observer
from the Berlin delegation to Bonn. Formed in the late 1950s, the
Bonn Group has played an increasingly important role in coordinat-
ing all-German matters and the special status of Berlin.
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The government's domestic position, however, may
suffer somewhat if the hijackers receive severe sentences.
The public sees the hijackers as political refugees. The
opposition parties will undoubtedly echo a similar posi-
tion, even though they generally favor a tough law-and-
order stance. The governing coalition already is facing
allegations of espionage in Social Democratic ranks and
the crucial Hessian State assembly election will be held
in early October. Fearing losses, the coalition parties
want to avoid further complications that would stem from
a severe Berlin court sentence.
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Chancellor Schmidt is aware that the trial of an
East German citizen in a West Berlin court would increase
tensions with East Germany. Soviet criticism will also
accompany a Berlin court trial, given Moscow's view
that extension to Berlin of West German ratifications
of the Hague and Montreal conventions, which require
local authorities either to prosecute or extradite hi-
jackers, represents an impermissible exercise of West
German sovereignty over West Berlin. The West Germans
are concerned that the East Germans and the Soviets
would use the trial of the hijacker by a West German
court as evidence that the Allies do not exercise their
reserved rights in Berlin in those areas where they
claimed to retain such rights, especially in the field
of civil aviation. The West German Government fears
that the Soviet Union and East Germany might then seek
to carry out a campaign of reducing Allied control over
air corridors. As all questions of access to Berlin are
highly sensitive, East German - Soviet pressure on the
most secure routes, the air corridors, could result in
a considerable setback in West German as well as Allied
relations with the Soviet Union and East Germany.
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The French and British, like the West Germans, would
like to see a strict sentence imposed by a specially con-
vened US court, which in their opinion has at least con-
current jurisdiction over air traffic in its sector.
However, prosecution before a specially constituted US
court raises the unwelcome prospect of prosecution of
a German civilian for violation of a German law in an
occupation court, a situation that could be readily ex-
ploited by the East to emphasize its argument that the
Western Sectors of Berlin constitute a "special entity."
Although the US is involved in the case because of
general Allied responsibility for civil aviation in Ber-
lin and because the plane landed at Tempelhof airport
in the US sector, this does not alter the fact that
Berlin authorities are responsible for enforcing crimi-
nal law in Berlin. The original Allied action in allow-
ing the Hague convention to be extended to Berlin would
be undermined to a great degree by the Anglo-French-
German position and would be tantamount to accepting
the validity of Soviet protests on the extension to
Berlin of West German ratifications of the Hague and
Montreal conventions. With the exception of the US,
neither the Allies nor the West Germans have yet men-
tioned that if the Berlin courts do not assume juris-
diction, Western efforts to strengthen West German -
Berlin ties will be diluted. All parties, however,
agree that regardless of whether the US or West Berlin
assumes jurisdiction, a unified Allied position must be
maintained.
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Norway: Public Airing of Northern Issues
The Norwegian Government is taking its position on
Svalbard and Barents Sea issues to the public to dispel
the impression that it is weak and ineffective in deal-
ing with Moscow, and to tell the Soviets it is interested
only in reciprocal bargaining on these questions. Prime
Minister Nordli delivered a hardhitting speech shortly
after Law of the Sea Minister Evensen returned from an
unproductive two-day discussion on fisheries regulations
with the Soviets in mid-August. Nordli also made public
his firm negotiating position on the northern issues.
He will not bargain on the continental shelf in the
Svalbard area and will make concessions on the Barents
Sea economic zone boundary only if the Soviets also
make concessions. The next session on fisheries regu-
lation will be in Oslo in mid-October and boundary
negotiations will resume early next year. It will be
the Soviets' turn to make an offer.
More recently, Undersecretary of Defense Holst, on
a tour of NATO facilities in Greenland, said that Norway
must avoid bilateral arrangements that give the USSR
special rights in the Svalbard area--a point of view
rarely articulated by Norwegian officials in public.
At the same time, however, the Norwegians seemed to be
trying to play down incidents of Soviet violations of
Norwegian sovereignty in the north.
Svalbard and Barents Sea Negotiations
All Oslo has to show after more than three years of
negotiations with the Soviets on northern economic zones
is an unenforceable "gray zone" in the Barents Sea--where
the Soviets are supposed to police Soviet fishing, but
apparently do not--and a zone in the Svalbard treaty
area, where the Soviets refuse to accept a Norwegian
declaration of fishery protection. The Soviets want to
establish the same kind of self- administration in the
disputed waters that they practice on the islands.
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Negotiations to establish borders and rights in the
northern maritime areas are conducted on legal and tech-
nical grounds that are new or newly applied to economic
zones all over the world. The Soviet arguments are at
least as well founded as the Norwegian ones and some of
Moscow's general. positions are shared by Western nations,
including NATO members. By signing the Treaty of Spitz-
bergen in 1924, the USSR recognized the demilitarized
status of, and Norwegian sovereignty over, the Svalbard
Archipelago. Even so, Moscow wants to exercise its
treaty rights to exploit the mineral resources without
subjecting Soviet personnel or operations to Norwegian
law and has ignored Norway's increasing efforts to exer-
cise sovereignty.
There is no evidence of prohibited military activity
by the Soviets, but recent helicopter transport improve-
ments and the oversized staff at the Soviet coal mine on
Svalbard suggest that the Soviets could engage in such
activities without detection. Some of the Soviet fishing
and merchant ships that ply these seas probably are
engaged in intelligence gathering functions, and the
Soviets may be preparing to spread their mining opera-
tions to the more strategically located Bear Island.
Freedom to operate in this area is important to
Moscow because of the major strategic missile forces--
:including home ports for missile submarines--and the
primary conventional naval fleet based on the Kola
Peninsula. Although the Kola Peninsula can be targeted
from thousands of miles away and Soviet submarine-
launched missiles can hit Western targets from stations
in the Barents Sea, the closer that missile submarines
can get to their targets the shorter the reaction time
available to the targeted nation. The Soviet surface
fleet based on the Kola Peninsula also has its primary
operating area to the south and west of the Barents Sea.
Control over economic activity there is seen by both
sides as essential as cover for military operations.
Moscow seeks not only to weaken Norwegian sovereignty in
the maritime area but to reduce, wherever possible, NATO
access in both the maritime and mainland areas of Norway.
Norway's position is based on its experience in estab-
lishing the maritime zone borders in the North Sea. Evensen,
in negotiating for this zone, successfully claimed the
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richest oil fields in the North Sea. He is using the same
arguments again in negotiations with the Soviets--and the
40 other signatories of the Treaty of Spitzbergen, al-
though they do not exercise their rights--for an extension
of Norwegian zonal claims in the ocean areas of the Sval-
bard Archipelago. Moscow refuses to accept the argument
that the provisions of the treaty stop at the four-mile
limit around each island, and none of the NATO signatories
has endorsed such an interpretation. Current negotiations
on the administration and enforcement of fishing regula-
tions in this area are stalemated on the provisions that
reflect this principle.
The Soviets have refused to acknowledge Oslo's
rights to regulate Soviet activities on the land areas
in the archipelago, and they wish to follow this pattern
in the ocean area. They insist on keeping their person-
nel and operations--larger than the Norwegian presence--
subject to Soviet law and refuse to report directly to
Norwegian authorities. There have been a number of dip-
lomatic incidents as a result. Oslo has made formal de-
marches after the Soviets failed to report such events
as helicopter accidents. Oslo's tactic appears to be to
increase its surveillance capabilities and to become in-
volved in any case where it has a legitimate sovereign
interest. Such an effort is costly for a small nation.
Negotiations for a zonal boundary in the Barents
Sea, which began in late 1975, stalemated over methods
of determining the boundary. Moscow would extend the
line from the territorial sea boundary along a longi-
tudinal or sector line to the north pole. The Norwegians
have offered to negotiate a compromise on their position
that the line be drawn equidistant from adjacent land
areas. The Soviets thus far have not been willing to
concede any part of their claim. Negotiations on these
questions will resume early next year.
The objectives of Norway's fishermen, generals, and
political leaders in the establishment of the economic
zones do not coincide. The military wants to restrict
Soviet control over the naval routes along the Norwegian
coastline and over the many islands in the western
Barents Sea. Political leaders are looking for ways
to maximize the profits from the national economic
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zone. Geological surveys indicate the greatest oil poten-
tial to be in the eastern, mostly Soviet areas, which are
either under dispute or unquestionably Soviet. Fishing
interests want dual control over migrating stocks. They
are willing to exchange fishing rights on western grounds
for restrictions on immature fishing stocks in the un-
disputed Soviet zone. Evensen, who supported the fisher-
men's position in negotiating the gray zone fishing
accord, came under fire from conservative politicians
and military leaders. This domestic conflict has led
the Nordli government to press harder for an agreement
on zonal boundaries.
Press Reports
In this atmosphere of continuing unproductive efforts
the Norwegian press has focused on the Soviet presence and
activities in the area and most recently has highlighted
a Soviet military aircraft crash on one of the Svalbard
islands.
Since June the press has reported an unprecedented
number of Soviet merchant ship incursions into Norwegian
territorial waters. In August the discovery of a radar
within the Soviet compound on Svalbard was followed by
reports and aerial photographs claiming to show airstrip
construction in the same area. Both were viewed as vio-
lations of Norwegian sovereignty and of the treaty pro-
hibition on military-related activities on the islands.
The press also reported on Soviet geological prospecting
on Bear Island and implied that mining operations might
be a cover for intelligence gathering. Soviet enforce-
ment of fishing regulations over third country trawlers
operating in the Barents Sea gray zone under Norwegian
license was also prominently reported in the press.
The purpose of the press attention seems to be to
put pressure on the government to be firm with the Soviets
on the northern issues, and probably also to build public
support for increased investment in maritime surveillance
and enforcement capabilities. The government has re-
sponded by attempting to cool the domestic reactions, but
also to appear to be dealin firmly with the Soviets.
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NATO-Greece: Military Reintegration Problems
Greek-Turkish bilateral differences are complicating
the reintegration of Greece into NATO's military side.
Turkey is objecting to proposals NATO Supreme Commander
Haig worked out in talks with Greek military officials
earlier this year. NATO's Military Committee began its
review of the matter last week.
Greece withdrew from NATO's integrated military com-
mand in August 1974 to protest the West's response to the
Turkish intervention in Cyprus. Earlier this year, Athens
expressed a desire to return. Continuing Greek-Turkish
differences over the Aegean and Cyprus, however, still
cloud the prospect that Turkey will agree with the other
NATO members on terms for Greece to resume a role in the
military side of the Alliance.
NATO's Military Committee last week began its review
of the proposals for Greece's reentry developed during
General Haig's talks with Greek officials in June. These
proposals would:
-- Reactivate a Greek-led NATO naval command.
-- Establish on Greek soil separate NATO
ground and air commands similar to
those the Turks took over this year
at Izmir in western Turkey.
-- Retain, on an "interim basis," the
Greeks' air and sea areas of respon-
sibility in the Aegean as they existed
to August of 1974.
The Turks are negative about these proposed arrange-
ments. Ankara argues that Athens would not be committing
forces to NATO commensurate with the commands it would
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have and that the "interim" demarcation of command areas
in the Aegean would harm Alliance security and prejudice
ongoing bilateral negotiations, in which the Turks hope
to increase their Aegean role. The Turks have said that
they are prepazed for extended talks within NATO on
Greek reintegration.
Turkey needs increased Western economic assistance
and faces not only the Aegean negotiations with Greece
but also talks on the future of the US bases in Turkey.
Ankara has implied that it will be seeking an advan-
tageous "package" deal and hopes to exercise the "last
word." on Greek reentry. F7 I
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