Schuessel ask for reconciliation gesture towards Sudeten Germans

During talks with the Czech Prime Minister Stanislav Gross, the Austrian Chancellor also said his country would welcome a gesture of reconciliation from the Czech government towards the ethnic German minority which was expelled from Czechoslovakia after WWII. Mr. Schuessel said his country was still learning from the painful experience of the war and that it would value a similar approach from the Czech Republic. Not all members of the German ethnic minority were necessarily guilty, and it would be fair to recognize that, the Chancellor said. The Czech Prime Minister failed to respond to the appeal. The expulsion of some 2.5 million ethnic Germans after the war remains a sensitive issue on both sides of the border.