US Deputy Treasury Secretary Stuart Eizenstat said on Wednesday that he hoped Austria would strike an accord by the end of the year on compensating Jews for property and valuables stolen by Nazis.
His comments came one day after Austria signed an accord with the US and five eastern European countries to compensate victims of Nazi slave labor worth six billion schillings (436 million euros, 365 million dollars).
"At the end of the year, we hope to have the property agreement," Eizenstat told a press conference shortly before leaving the Austrian capital.
The Austrian Jewish community says assets seized by Nazis after Austria's 1938 annexation into Hitler's Third Reich included around 70,000 apartments in addition to personal valuables.
Austrian officials began talks on the property and assets compensation accord immediately after the signing ceremony on Tuesday. Eizenstat said that six hours of negotiations Tuesday and Wednesday had been "very productive."
Further talks on the issue are to take place in Washington on November 13-14, he said.
US and Austrian officials, along with lawyers representing victims' associations, have decided to form two groups to identify categories of confiscated assets for which compensation will be paid, Eizenstat said.
The talks will also focus on shortcomings in previous Austrian legislation on returning seized property to its rightful owners, he added.
Jewish community leader Ariel Muzicant also wants negotiations to include compensation not only for survivors, but for descendants of Jews whose assets were stolen: some 65,000 Jews who died in the Holocaust and 115,000 others who have died since World War II.
Eizenstat meanwhile rejected an argument by New York lawyer Ed Fagan, the main victims' representative, who said the slave labor agreement would be automatically rendered invalid if a property accord was not reached this year.
"It is a totally inaccurate," he told reporters. "The labor agreement stands on its own. "At the end of the year, we hope to have the property agreement which does not affect the labor forced agreement."
Fagan -- who played a key role in securing accords in Switzerland and Germany -- is demanding that Austria pay 12 billion schillings to Jews whose assets were seized by the Nazis.
An Austrian government source however admitted that Vienna could not hope for all US legal action against it to be withdrawn, so long as there was no agreement on compensation for seized property.
Under the slave-labor accord, 150,000 survivors of Nazi slave labor policies will receive compensation.
Vienna hopes the deal will act as a "legal closure" document protecting it from lawsuits from victims of its Nazi wartime past.
But Eizenstat warned Austria was not yet free from lawsuits.
"This agreement does not of course end all moral responsibility for the crimes committed by the Nazis and their Austrian supporters on the territory of present day Austria," he said Tuesday -- VIENNA (AFP)
© 2000 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
