The World - News from Dec. 21, 1988

Poland’s Foreign Minister Tadeusz Olechowski rejected East Germany’s claim to Baltic waters. Olechowski’s statement was Warsaw’s toughest declaration on the dispute over the Pomeranian Bay in the Baltic, which has clouded relations between the neighboring East Bloc states. In a statement in the Communist Party daily Trybuna Ludu, Olechowski said East Germany’s November, 1985, decision to extend its territorial waters to 12 nautical miles barred Poland from the only waterway from Szczecin and Swinoujscie, its biggest port complex. “This is obviously unacceptable to Poland,” he said.