Austrian State Treaty

The Austrian State Treaty was signed in the Belvedere Palace in Vienna by the foreign ministers of the Soviet Union, the United States, Britain and France, together with Austria, ending ten years of Allied occupation. It restored Austria as a sovereign and independent democratic state within the borders of 1938, and forbade any political or economic union with Germany. Foreign troops were to leave, and the country later passed a law declaring permanent neutrality, a condition that the Soviet Union had pressed for. The settlement was made possible by a change in Soviet policy after Stalin's death, and it was seen at the time as a rare example of Cold War cooperation. Austria remained neutral and outside NATO.

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