Austria's president told Secretary of State Madeleine Albright on Thursday that the government was establishing a commission to identify art which was stolen from Holocaust victims by the Nazis.
Austrian officials said President Thomas Klestil told Albright, who paid a one-day visit to Vienna after the Moscow summit, that the commission would first determine the origin of all art works owned by the Federal Museum here.
There was no statement on the art issue by U.S. officials. Albright left for the United States after meetings with Klestil, Chancellor Viktor Klima and Foreign Minister Wolfgang Schuessel.
Austria, the United States and 37 other nations have launched a drive to identify billions of dollars worth of art stolen from Holocaust victims throughout Europe.
The World Jewish Congress estimates the current value of stolen art at between dlrs 90 billion and dlrs 140 billion.
In June, the Association of Art Museum Directors in the United States recommended that American art museums check their own collections to determine if any works were stolen during the war and set up a worldwide database for tracking.
Austria was absorbed into Adolf Hitler's Germany in 1938 and was restored as an independent nation following World War II.
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