German Pledge on Borders Sought : Reunification: Sen. Pell urges the Administration to hold up its approval. He will offer a resolution this week.

Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Claiborne Pell (D-R.I.) urged the Bush Administration on Sunday to withhold approval of German reunification unless Germany pledges to respect its existing borders with neighboring nations.

Pell said his committee will take up a resolution this week declaring that the termination of Allied occupation rights in Germany “should be contingent on Germany’s unequivocal recognition that all its present borders are legal, permanent and unalterable.”

Although Pell’s resolution would not be binding on the Administration, the Senate ultimately must approve any formal peace treaty that may be signed between a united Germany and the four major victorious Allies of World War II--the United States, the Soviet Union, Britain and France.

Pell criticized West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, who is under heavy pressure from some domestic groups, including former residents of territory now under Polish rule, for appearing to hedge on the boundaries established in the postwar division of territory.

Kohl’s equivocation “has produced understandable and great anxiety in Poland, a country that suffered more than any other at the hands of Nazi Germany during the Second World War,” Pell said in a statement.

The Senate resolution, sponsored by committee members of both parties, endorses reunification of Germany but declares that neighbors are “entitled” to assurances that current boundaries will remain unchanged.

The most concerned neighbor is Poland, which has demanded a voice in all formal international talks on the subject of reunification. Large areas of today’s Poland were once part of Germany, and some rightist political elements in West Germany--as well as citizens who used to live in what once was German Pomerania and Silesia--believe the land should be reclaimed.

British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, who questions the wisdom of reunification, and Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev have expressed support for the Polish demand for a role in talks. President Bush has opposed direct Polish participation.

Secretary of State James A. Baker III declared last week that changes in Europe must be accomplished peacefully, and he accepted Kohl’s assertion that a commitment on Germany’s boundaries must follow reunification.

“He is not the chancellor of a united Germany, and therefore he really does not have the legal authority (to make a border commitment),” Baker said. “The United States and others involved in this process are quite conscious of history, and our strong position is that the current borders are and should be inviolable and should be changed only by peaceful means.”

Both West Germany and East Germany have long since recognized the existing Polish frontier in separate accords with Warsaw. Also, both German governments also signed the Helsinki Final Act of 1975, which affirmed all existing European borders.

The Senate resolution, scheduled for consideration Tuesday by Pell’s committee, asserts that the current western boundaries of Poland were established to “compensate Poland for territory lost as a result of the cynical and illegal Nazi-Soviet pact.”