Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder sets out Saturday on a six-stage tour of the Middle East aimed to contribute to the EU effort to support peace in the region, but likely, according to some German officials, to be a "diplomatic minefield."
The German government position is that Germany as such can have no policy toward the Middle East and that there will be no German mediation. Rather, the government's aim is to contribute to European Union efforts to resolve the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians.
The tour had been planned a year ago, well before the latest violent flare-up, a source close to the chancellor said, explaining that it had been decided to maintain it despite the troubles. However, the more "touristic" aspects have now been trimmed down.
Schroeder will successively visit Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan, Syria, Israel and the Palestinian territories for top-level talks, returning to Berlin Wednesday evening.
The EU role in the Middle East, where the United States has tended to dominate peace efforts, is becoming more important, German officials say.
German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer himself stressed Wednesday that Berlin could only contribute to efforts to get the two sides talking again, and could not act independently.
He said that the rise of violence in the Middle East was a great tragedy since a peace settlement had been "so close". Fischer said the problem was that trust has broken down between Israel and the Palestinians.
"It will certainly be no easy ride," commented one official closely involved in planning the trip.
But he stressed: "We want to show solidarity with the peace-oriented forces in the region." To have called the trip off would have "given the wrong signal".
German officials admit Schroeder's trip constitutes a "diplomatic minefield". The German government has to contend with Palestinian demands that Israeli "provocations" be condemned, while, on the other hand, Israel wants pressure put on Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.
In an interview with the weekly magazine Stern, Prime Minister Ehud Barak said he expected Schroeder and other EU leaders to use their influence with Arafat "in order that he ends the violence and returns to the negotiating table."
However, German officials say there is no question of condemning one side or the other, but rather to seek to encourage "the forces of reason". "We agree with the forces of reason in the region that a victory for the radicals would be fatal," one official said.
The chancellor's trip has the backing both of the current French presidency of the EU and Washington, German officials indicated. Political leaders in the countries to be visited had also wanted the trip maintained, they said.
Bilateral relations too will be on the agenda of Schroeder's tour, which will see the first-ever official visits by a German chancellor to Lebanon and to Syria -- BERLIN (AFP)
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