Germany's new foreign minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier heads for the US tomorrow to make his debut appearance with Secretary of State Rice and other officials. This was supposed to be a chance to establish a new improved relationship with the Bush administration, something that Angela Merkel has wanted for some time.
New German Chancellor Angela Merkel vowed to strengthen relations with the United States and smaller EU nations in remarks released Sunday, a day before her top diplomat heads for Washington.
In an interview with Focus magazine, Merkel also suggested the close links with Russia pursued by her predecessor, Gerhard Schroeder, were a lower priority for the new government.
But Steinmeier arrives with a cloud of suspicion surrounding the secret CIA flights that have used Germany as a hub for transporting suspected terrorists to other countries where they face torture. According to earlier reports in the Berliner Zeitung, there many have been as many as 85 of such flights that used the US Air Force base at Ramstein to transfer detainees. Now Der Spiegel is reporting that opposition parties in Germany are insisting that Steinmeier bring up the issue of these flights in his discussions in Washington. In particular, the Free Democrats (FDP), who are usually friendly to the neocons in Washington, are putting pressure on Steinmeier.
Auch die FDP fordert von Frank-Walter Steinmeier (SPD) Aufklärung darüber, ob die CIA gegen deutsches und internationales Recht verstoßen habe. Gegebenenfalls müsse der Minister verlangen, dass solche Operationen eingestellt werden, sagte FDP-Präsidiumsmitglied Birgit Homburger in Berlin. Sie sagte weiter: "Als enger Verbündeter der USA braucht Deutschland sofort Klarheit darüber, ob Meldungen über derartige verdeckte Operationen des US-Geheimdienstes zutreffen und ob in solchen Fällen erteilte Lande- und Überflugrechte missbraucht worden sind."
Die FDP verlange zudem, dass sich der Auswärtige Ausschuss des Bundestages so bald wie möglich mit diesen Vorgängen befasse, sagte Homburger. Dabei müsse auch geklärt werden, ob die bisherige Bundesregierung über derartige Vorgänge informiert gewesen sei.
And Oskar Lafontaine, who now leads the Linkspartei delegation in the Bundestag, brought up the issue of national sovereignty in connection with the CIA flights
«Deutschland muss wie andere europäische Staaten endlich souverän werden und selbst darüber entscheiden, ob es einen Krieg mitmacht oder nicht», betonte Lafontaine. Er verwies auf ein Urteil des Bundesverwaltungsgerichts, nachdem Deutschland durch die logistische Unterstützung der amerikanischen Truppen im völkerrechtswidrigen Irak-Krieg selbst völkerrechtswidrig handele.
(my trans. "Germany must be sovereign like other European states, and decide for itself if wants to participate in a war or not" Lafontaine emphasized. He referred to a decision of the Federal Court in Germany that Germany had acted illegally by providing logistical support to US troops in the War in Iraq, which violated international law.)
This is certainly not an atmosphere that will be conducive to the fence-mending in Washington that Angela Merkel envisioned.
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