The Soviet Union and most of its allies on Saturday hailed East Germany's decision to open the Berlin Wall but cautioned that the Cold War relic will still be considered a border between the Germanys.
Official media in Czechoslovakia, the Soviet Union and Hungary carried reports about East Berlin's decision to open its borders. Romania, which has the most repressive leadership in the bloc, has kept a virtual news blackout on the event."The wall has ceased to be an obstacle to free movement (but) it doesn't mean that it stopped to be a border as well. The border's existence continues, as well as the border between the two German states," the Czech youth daily Mlada Fronta said in an editorial.
"The fossil from the Cold War years, the symbol of division of Europe, along which many people have died, has fallen to let our continent, the people of the East and West, learn to live together after years of silent neighborhood," the newspaper said.
The response was similar in the Soviet Union, which under President Mikhail S. Gorbachev has embarked on a broad program of social and political reforms that have spread to other Communist nations.
The Communist Party daily Pravda said the "decision of the East German government is a brave and wise political step, attesting to a complete break with old dogmas."
In Hungary, where the Communist Party itself has been banished to history books since it disbanded last month, an editorial in the daily Nepszava said, "As far its function is concerned, the wall has already collapsed.
"The purpose of the Berlin Wall, as opposed to its Chinese counterpart, was not to keep invaders out, but to keep people who wanted to leave inside."
In Communist nonaligned Yugoslavia, the state Tanjug news agency said East Germany's decision was "a positive step toward removal of bloc barriers in Europe (which) creates room for a change of the postwar geopolitical picture of the European continent."