Polish Leader Demands Role in Reunification Talks

Polish Prime Minister Tadeusz Mazowiecki, voicing Warsaw’s disquiet at the prospect of a united Germany, demanded a role for Warsaw in talks leading to unification but ran into opposition from Bonn on Wednesday.

Mazowiecki said Poland, whose postwar borders include huge tracts of former German territory, must be involved in negotiations between East and West Germany and the principal victorious wartime Allies in order to guarantee its security.

“We want to be present wherever the question of security of Germany’s neighbors would be discussed. Our security matters cannot be settled by proxy for us,” he told a news conference in London.

But West German government officials in Bonn virtually rejected the demand, saying that West and East Germany would make no claims on Polish territory.

“It would not be meaningful to include Poland in the six-nation talks,” one source said.

In Ottawa, where the unification plan was drawn up, the Soviet Union changed the draft by adding the phrase, “including the issue of security of the neighboring states,” at the behest of Poland, it was understood.

Mazowiecki refused to be drawn out on whether Poland wants full membership in the six-power group overseeing German unification--the United States, Soviet Union, Britain, France and the two Germanys.