Germany’s Role Up to NATO, Baker Says : Reunification: He rules out any voice for the Soviets in deciding if the united country will stay in the Western alliance.

Secretary of State James A. Baker III said Wednesday that the Soviet Union, despite its rights as a victorious power in World War II, has no authority to block a reunited Germany from membership in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

Baker said a meeting beginning Saturday among the foreign ministers of West and East Germany and the four victorious wartime Allies--the United States, the Soviet Union, Britain and France--has no power to decide matters that go beyond the status of Berlin and other issues left over from the postwar occupation of Germany.

It was the first time that Baker has sought to draw such a fine distinction on the scope of the upcoming negotiations, known as the “two-plus-four” talks. In the past, the U.S. government sought, without success, to persuade Moscow to agree to a reunited Germany being a NATO member.

The secretary of state spoke to reporters aboard his Air Force jet while en route to Europe, where he will attend a NATO foreign ministers meeting here today before the two-plus-four session in Bonn.

He said it is up to a unified Germany and the other 15 members of NATO to decide matters affecting German membership in the alliance. At the same time, he said NATO has already begun to change from a primarily military alliance to a forum for political consultation, a step that may win the support of East German Prime Minister Lothar de Maiziere.

During a recent visit to Moscow, De Maiziere said he would support German membership in NATO provided there were changes in the alliance’s “structure and strategy.”

“I’m not sure I know the degree to which--and how--he thinks it should be transformed,” Baker commented, but he added that a transformation is taking place.

Baker said the agenda for today’s meeting reflects NATO’s “new political mission and greater political focus.” He said the session will cover German reunification, European security matters, Lithuania and U.S.-Soviet relations.

“I don’t think you can get much more political than that,” he said.

The two-plus-four forum for German unification was launched last February. At that time, the six foreign ministers said in a joint communique that the meetings were intended to “discuss external aspects of the establishment of German unity, including the issues of security of the neighboring states.”

In his comments Wednesday, Baker said that the key word in the earlier statement was “discuss.” He said the two-plus-four meeting can discuss everything but that it has very limited power to make binding decisions.

“The question of whether the unified Germany should be a member of NATO is a question that is properly decided in NATO, with the participation of the united Germany,” Baker said. “The question of the extent and degree of future involvement of German forces is a matter that is not appropriately decided within the context of two-plus-four, but rather within the context of the (conventional forces in Europe) discussions in Vienna.”

U.S. officials earlier had expressed concern that Moscow’s opposition to German membership in NATO could slow the reunification process. However, Baker said Wednesday that the Soviet role is limited to its rights as a postwar occupying power. Except for the continuing four-power role in Berlin, most of those rights were relinquished long ago by Moscow and its three Western wartime allies.