Hungary began dismantling its section of the "Iron Curtain" that has dividend Europe for four decades on Tuesday with the removal of a barbed fence on its border with Austria.

The 20-year-old barrier replaced a mine field laid after the Communist takeover of Hungary in the late 1940's. Dismantling began in the no-man's-land near the small town of Heygeshalom on the main road between Budapest and Vienna and at three other points, Koszeg, Sopron and Szentgotthard.

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Hungary began dismantling its section of the "Iron Curtain" that has dividend Europe for four decades on Tuesday with the removal of a barbed fence on its border with Austria.

The 20-year-old barrier replaced a mine field laid after the Communist takeover of Hungary in the late 1940's. Dismantling began in the no-man's-land near the small town of Heygeshalom on the main road between Budapest and Vienna and at three other points, Koszeg, Sopron and Szentgotthard.

While Hungarians have been able to travel abroad freely since Eastern Europe's most liberal passport law was introduced in 1988, Austria has mixed feelings about the dismantling of the Iron Curtain. Austrian government sources fear that other East Europeans, especially Romanians now flooding into Hungary because of ethnic strife, could use Hungary as an easy transit route to the West by simply walking into Austria. Close