Kohl Considers Scrapping Short-Range A-Missiles

West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, considering whether short-range nuclear missiles should remain in a united Germany, said today that the old targets for Western weapons had become new democracies.

“The world has changed,” Kohl said at a 40-minute news conference with Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. “The range of these weapons . . . would reach cities like Prague, or the (East) German city of Rostock, where I just spoke to a crowd of 100,000 people.”

Since the 350-mile-range missiles were installed, Czechoslovakia has undergone a peaceful “velvet revolution” to democracy and East Germany held its first free elections since 1933.

Kohl arrived in England on Thursday for a dinner in Cambridge to mark the 40th anniversary of the Koenigswinter conference, an annual Anglo-German diplomatic event.

The two leaders also spoke privately at Thatcher’s 10 Downing St. office today and agreed that a united Germany should remain part of NATO and be anchored in European institutions. Thatcher said they would remain in close contact to deal with various problems surrounding East Germany.

“Germany is part of the Western community and under no circumstances will we accept neutralization,” Kohl told reporters after the meeting.

“What sort of weapons will be in Germany and what sort of troop levels will be in Germany? That will be decided with our partners in NATO, not by ourselves.”

Thatcher said she saw European unity “growing day by day” in all spheres, with each nation’s identity and history remaining intact. Soon the entire Soviet Union may become democratic, requiring “a new framework of cooperation,” she said.

She said both leaders had solved a diplomatic row that broke out Monday when Thatcher in an interview questioned Kohl’s commitment to preserving the existing German-Polish border and called for a united Germany to sign a treaty with Poland.

“If between Germany and Poland we can talk to each other, then this is real peace,” Kohl said. “We can’t forget history and the terrible things that we have done . . . but I want to promote peace.”

At Thursday’s dinner, Kohl said he hoped that Poland, “despite calling injustice by its proper name, would hold out its hand of friendship to guiltless Germans.”

Kohl said unification of Germany is a question of self-determination for Germans but that all neighbors of the two countries have an interest in it.

“With the scrapping of East-West confrontation and the advent of democracy in the countries in middle eastern and southern Europe, we are offered the first realistic chance since the end of World War II to overcome peacefully the division of Europe and the division of Germany.”