05 June 2009
Obama, Germany’s Merkel Confer on a Range of Security Issues
Washington — President Obama and German Chancellor Angela Merkel said now is the moment to forge ahead with the Middle East peace process.
At a joint press briefing in Dresden, Germany, June 5, Obama said, “We discussed my recent trip to the Middle East and the need for all of us to redouble our efforts to bring about two states, Israel and a Palestinian state, that are living side by side in peace and security. The moment is now for us to act.”
Obama said Israelis and Palestinians are going to have to make difficult compromises and that further political violence must be rejected.
“I said on behalf of the Federal Republic of Germany that we would like to try and be helpful in this peace process to the extent that this is possible to us,” Merkel said alongside Obama at Dresden Castle. “We need a two-state solution; we need a viable Palestinian state and a viable state of Israel.”
Obama and Merkel held a bilateral meeting at Dresden Castle that included U.S. and German delegations. Before their meeting and press conference, Obama signed the golden books for the state of Saxony and the city of Dresden. After the press conference, they toured the Church of Our Lady (Frauenkirche) before visiting the World War II Buchenwald concentration camp.
The visit to the Nazi-era concentration camp is particularly important to the president. His great uncle, Charles Payne, helped to liberate the Ohrdruf labor camp, a subcamp of Buchenwald, as a member of the U.S. 89th Infantry Division.
Obama also visited the U.S.-operated Landstuhl Regional Medical Center to meet with wounded U.S. troops.
The meeting with Merkel opened the second part of his trip that began in Saudi Arabia and then Egypt, where the president addressed Muslims around the world in a speech from Cairo University.
“The Palestinians have to get serious about creating the security environment that is required for Israel to feel confident,” the president said. “Israelis are going to have to take some difficult steps.”
While the United States cannot force peace on the two parties, the president said, he has tried to “clear away some of the misunderstandings so that we can at least begin to have frank dialogue.”
IRAN NEGOTIATIONS
Merkel said negotiations with Iran over its nuclear weapons ambitions were also at the top of their agenda. Germany and the United States agreed to work closely on convincing the Iranian regime to give up its weapons development efforts. “Germany will try its utmost with its contacts, with its expert knowledge, to give a positive contribution to this issue,” she said.
Germany along with Britain and France — dubbed the EU 3, or European Union 3 — initially began efforts to convince Iran to halt its weapons program when it appeared that other international efforts were not being effective. The EU 3 were then joined by China, Russia and the United States in the diplomatic initiative.
Obama said the United States is committed to serious dialogue and negotiations with Iran, but that it could not be done in isolation and should be in conjunction with the EU 3-plus-3 process.
In July, Obama travels to Russia for meetings with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev. They will review an initial draft of a treaty to replace the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, START-I. The current treaty expires in December.
“Our concern is not just Iran, but a broader effort to strengthen nonproliferation so that the threat of nuclear weapons is greatly reduced in our lifetime,” the president said.
GLOBAL ECONOMIC CRISIS
Obama and Merkel also continued talks begun in April at the London Group of 20 Financial Summit on the parameters for collective action to relieve the global economic crisis. While the United States initially began helping to stabilize the banking system and the financial markets, it has begun shifting emphasis to strengthening financial regulations, which European nations strongly endorsed.
“We are working diligently to strengthen financial regulations to ensure that a crisis like this doesn’t happen again, and it’s going to be very important to coordinate between Europe and the United States as we move to strengthen our financial regulatory systems,” Obama said. And the G20 nations also agreed not to engage in protectionism, which could stifle global trade and snuff out any chance of a rapid economic recovery, he said.
Obama concludes his five-day trip in Normandy, France, for the 65th anniversary of the World War II D-Day landings. He will also hold talks with French President Nicolas Sarkozy and deliver remarks at the Normandy American Cemetery in Colleville-sur-Mer.
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