Council of Foreign Ministers

Papers and minutes of the First to the Fourth meetings of the Council of Foreign Ministers [London, Paris, New York and Moscow], and the British record of meetings of the Deputy Foreign Ministers, 1945-1947. The series also contains draft peace treaties with Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary and Finland.

At the Potsdam Conference in July 1945, it was agreed by the 'Big Three' of the United States, the Soviet Union and the United Kingdom that a Council of Foreign Ministers of the Soviet Union, the United States, the United Kingdom, China and France would be established to prepare draft peace treaties with Italy, Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary and Finland. The Council of Foreign Ministers met for their first session in London in September 1945, but disagreement between the Soviet Union and the United States over the occupation of Japan and Soviet aspirations in the Mediterranean and the Balkans meant little was accomplished. In December 1945, a Conference of the Foreign Ministers of the Soviet Union, the United States and the United Kingdom, held in Moscow, agreed that the draft treaties prepared by the Council would be submitted to a conference to be held in Paris, consisting of the five members of the Council and the sixteen other Allied nations that had fought in Europe with substantial military force. The Deputy Foreign Ministers began their series of conferences when they met in London in January 1946, and the Council met for its second session in Paris in April of that year. The Peace Conference was held at the Palais du Luxembourg in Paris from 29 July to 15 October 1946, and the final draft of the resulting five peace treaties was drawn up by the third Session of the Council held in New York from November to December 1946. The New York Conference approved many of the recommendations adopted by the Paris Peace Conference and resolved the remaining problems concerning the Free Territory of Trieste. The Council met for a fourth time in Moscow from March to April 1947 to discuss peace treaties with Germany and Austria, but deteriorating relations between the powers meant little was achieved other than the formal dissolution of the state of Prussia. There were subsequent meetings of the Council in September 1948, May to June 1949 and January to February 1954, but it was not until 1955 that agreement was reached on an Austrian peace treaty, known as the Austrian State Treaty. In June 1972, the Four Power Agreement on Berlin regularised West Berlin's status and its relations with East and West Germany. The Basic Treaty of June 1973 recognised two German states and the two countries promised to respect one another's sovereignty, leading to the exchange of diplomatic missions and the establishment of relations in such areas as commerce, tourism, culture and communications. It was the Agreement and the Treaty which paved the way for both East and West Germany to join the United Nations in September 1973. However, it would not be until the fall of the Berlin Wall that the Treaty on the Final Settlement With Respect to Germany was signed by the four powers and the two German Governments on 12 September 1990. This was the final peace treaty of the Second World War which restored German sovereignty and allowed German reunification to take place on 3 October 1990.

Unrestricted

More papers in the India Office Records relating to the Council of Foreign Ministers can be found in the Burma Office Annual Files at IOR/M/4/2411-2414, IOR/M/4/3074-3076 and IOR/M/4/3092-3095. Also in the Political (External) Collections at IOR/L/PS/12/1138 and IOR/L/PS/12/4569A-4578. Papers relating to the 1946 Paris Peace Conference can be found at IOR/Q/24.