Israeli FM visit to Germany 'far from encouraging'

Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman left open the future of the Mideast peace process on Thursday, during a visit to Berlin which marked the last stop of a four-day European tour. Germany's top diplomatic official urged Lieberman to adopt a two-state plan as the basis for peace in the Middle East and the "sole path to peace and security." Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier set out Berlin's "clear expectation" in a statement to the media just before he was to meet with Lieberman, who is touring European capitals. But Lieberman refused to commit to a two-state solution for Israel and the Palestinian Territories during talks with members of the German parliamentary foreign affairs committee. Lieberman talked about a "peace industry" which to date had achieved little but waste money, according to parliamentarians at the meeting. He further described Iran as a major threat. Lieberman's criticism of the "peace industry wrankled his interlocutors in Europe. 'All this is far from encouraging,' said former German minister of state for foreign affairs, Werner Hoyer. Later in the day, Lieberman paid his respects at Berlin's Holocaust memorial, laying a wreath at the 19,000-square-metre monument in the centre of Berlin containing 2,711 individually shaped concrete blocks, known as 'stelae.' Lieberman was later due to hold talks with German Interior Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble, followed by dinner with his German counterpart Frank-Walter Steinmeier. Steinmeier was expected to make clear that the new Israeli government had to keep to the agreements achieved in the Mideast peace process, German foreign ministry sources said. Lieberman's European visit - which had included meetings in Rome, Paris and European Union (EU) talks in Prague - was mostly conducted out of the media eye. In Berlin, no joint press conference or photo call was convened for his meeting with Steinmeier. This echoed Lieberman's reception in France, where Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner chose not to hold a joint press conference as had been customary when Lieberman's predecessor Tzipi Livni came to Paris. The Israeli foreign minister, who heads a nationalist party in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's coalition, caused a stir on his first day in office, when he announced that Israel was no longer bound by the so-called Annapolis peace process, which formed the basis of the Israeli-Palestinian peace talks in 2008.