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| By: Associated Press |
| Published: December 18, 2005 |
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German Chancellor Angela Merkel plans to visit Israel next month, the government said Sunday, on a trip meant in part to signal solidarity following recent anti-Israel outbursts by the president of Iran.
Merkel will travel to Israel in late January, a government spokeswoman said on customary condition of anonymity.
The visit will underline "Germany's unconditional defense of Israel's right to exist," she added, confirming a report by the weekly Der Spiegel that one of the trip's aims is to send a signal of opposition to recent comments by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Ahmadinejad aggravated tensions last week by calling the Nazi Holocaust a "myth," two months after he called for Israel to be "wiped off the map."
Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier wrote in an article for the Bild am Sonntag newspaper that the president's comments constituted a test for German-Iranian relations. He added: "the danger threatens that Iran could become completely isolated internationally."
"If Iran wants to be a respected partner of Europe, its president can neither deny historical truths nor threaten Israel," the minister wrote. "Only an Iran that shows responsibility and keeps to the international rules can be a respected member of the international community."
Steinmeier renewed his warning that Ahmadinejad's outbursts will make talks between European negotiators and Tehran on Iran's nuclear program more difficult.
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