Council of Foreign Ministers

Council of Foreign Ministers was an organisation agreed upon at the Potsdam Conference in 1945 and announced in the Potsdam Agreement.

The Potsdam Agreement specified that the Council would be composed of the Foreign Ministers of the United Kingdom, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, China, France, and the United States. It would normally meet in London (at Lancaster House) and the first meeting was to take place no later than 1 September 1945. As the immediate important task, the Council was authorised to draw up treaties of peace with Italy, Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary and Finland, and to propose settlements of territorial questions outstanding on the termination of the war in Europe. Also the Council should prepare a peace settlement for Germany to be accepted when a "government adequate for the purpose is established".

The Ministers met two times in 1945: first at the London Conference of Foreign Ministers and then in December at the Moscow Conference of Foreign Ministers, and in 1946 at the Paris Conference of Foreign Ministers.

The London Conference was marred by a dispute between the Soviet Union and the United States over occupation of Japan and little of substance was accomplished. The Moscow conference was more productive; it agreed to the preparation of peace treaties with Italy, Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary and Finland; the creation of an eleven–member Far Eastern Commission and a four–member Allied Council for Japan. It also agreed to the establishment by the United Nations of a commission for the control of atomic energy, as well as a number of other lesser issues bought about by the end of World War II. France joined the Council in 1946 and at the Paris Conference the final wording for the Paris Peace Treaties of 1947 was agreed. The outstanding issue of Free Territory of Trieste was resolved at the New York meeting of the Foreign Ministers in November–December 1946.

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