ABSTRACT
Bilateral relations in the early and mid-eighties were characterized by a steady drop in emigration permits issued to ethnic German Soviet citizens, reflecting the increasingly negative posture toward the Federal Republic since 1983. On January 19, 1988, the foreign ministers of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republic's and of the Federal Republic signed a protocol on bilateral consultations, an agreement on the reciprocal establishment of consulates general in Kiev and Munich as well as an accord extending the agreement of May 6, 1978, on long-term cooperation in the area of economics by five years. Until September 1988, the Soviet side was adamant that all accords either visibly separate participants from Berlin and partners from the Federal Republic or always refer to the Federal Republic of Germany and Berlin. There were indications in 1988 that Moscow intended to establish an autonomous region near Saratov for a part of the Soviet citizens of German extraction.
