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Foreign dignitaries thank Hungary for role in opening Iron Curtain
Published in Saudi Press Agency on 27 - 06 - 2009


German President Horst Koehler was among the many
prominent figures in Budapest Saturday for an official celebration of
the 20th anniversary of the day when Austria and Hungary symbolically
cut the barbed wire fence that had separated their countries for four
decades, according to dpa.
"I thank the Hungarian people on behalf of all Germans for the
signal of 1989, for their courage and their solidarity with the East
German refugees," Koehler said during a speech in the Hungarian
parliament building.
A letter from Barack Obama was read out at the commemoration, in
which the US President spoke of the rarity of dates as significant as
this, on which the world "bears witness to such a triumph over
adversity".
"We salute all those who bravely stood up for change," Obama
wrote, according to the local news agency MTI.
Among the attendees at the international celebration were the
presidents of Austria, Finland, Slovenia and Switzerland, Czech Prime
Minister Jan Fischer, and high ranking officials from some 20 other
countries.
The "signal" President Koehler spoke of was when then Hungarian
foreign minister Gyula Horn joined his Austrian counterpart, Alois
Mock, in front of the world's media to cut the barbed wire fence near
the Hungarian border town of Sopron on June 27, 1989.
In fact, Hungary had begun to dismantle its border defences two
months earlier. By June 27, there was actually very little barbed
wire left to cut.
Nevertheless, East Germans watched the event on Western television
and rushed to Hungary, their favourite officially approved holiday
destination, in the hope of escape.
Although they found the Austria-Hungary border was still very much
closed and manned by armed guards, East Germans continued to arrive
in their thousands until, on September 11, 1989, the Hungarian
authorities opened the border completely.
Some 12,000 East Germans rushed into Austria then north to be
reunited with West German relatives from whom they had been cut off
for 40 years.
The photo opportunity was a key milestone on the road to the
opening of the Berlin wall on November 9, 1989, the fall of Communist
dictatorships across Eastern Europe, and the eventual reunification
of Germany.


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