Kohl says Germany wants to be part of war celebrations

Chancellor Helmut Kohl, speaking at a news conference in London at the

end of the one-day UK-German summit, said that at no point had he sought

an invitation to this year's D-Day celebrations. Had he been invited he

would not have gone.

''This was very well known and it has not been an issue between us,''

he said. ''But we want to learn our lesson from history. If next year,

looking back on the end of the Second World War, we agree to meet and

remember the dead of that war and pay our respects to the victims of

that war, in the joint conviction that it is our duty -- let me say this

very personally, I was only 15 years old when the war ended -- we feel

obliged to see to it no generation in Europe will ever be in the

situation again that there is war between them.''

Asked if the controversy over how D-Day is to be remembered had placed

a burden on UK-German relations, Chancellor Kohl said relations were

excellent and had been for a long time. ''I don't think we should make

any bones about it,'' he said. ''As far as I can see in every family

there are disagreements -- and in every newspaper -- but as to the

commemoration of 50 years, quite frankly, I do not understand what

people are talking about.''

Mr Major said that both he and Mr Kohl wished to bring the young

people of Britain and Germany closer together and to improve mutual

understanding of each other's country. They had agreed to ask their

officials to come up with specific and imaginative proposals on this.

The summit was said by Mr Major to have been spent largely looking at

Europe in the years immediately ahead. Both leaders insisted there had

been no disagreements between them, and that the key issue had been how

to extend the security and prosperity we had become used to in the West

to our neighbours further to the East. To that end they had agreed on

three projects.

* A joint proposal is being made to Hungary for a trilateral peace

keeping exercise to be held in 1995 within the framework of Partnership

for Peace in which Nato would be fully involved.

* Germany and Britain will continue to take part in the co-ordination

of national efforts to help Ukraine achieve the elimination of all

nuclear weapons on her soil.

* The next UK-German defence seminar, to be held in January in

Hamburg, will focus on our relations with Central and Eastern European

countries.

Mr Major said he had read reports that he and the Chancellor were in

sharp disagreement over whether the Belgian Prime Minister, Mr Jean-Luc

Dehane, should be Mr Jacques Delors's successor as European Commission

president.

''I hate to disappoint you, but we have managed a sharp disagreement

on no subject at all,'' he said. ''So far as the presidency is

concerned, it is only beginning to come under discussion. It did not

feature high on our agenda and is not something that will be decided

between Britain and Germany or any two member states. It will be a

collective decision.''