Germany hopes for new beginning if Bush re-elected

A senior German official today said he hoped that if US President George Bush was re-elected, he would seize the chance for a “new beginning” in relations with Europe, and stressed that Berlin would send no troops to Iraq, whoever won the US presidential election.

German-US ties were strained by Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder’s vehement opposition to last year’s US-led war in Iraq, although the two governments have since moved to repair relations.

Germany has offered help in rebuilding Iraq, and is helping train the new Iraqi police and military. But “the German military will not be sent to Iraq, independently of who becomes president in the United States,” said Karsten Voigt, the Foreign Ministry’s top official for relations with Washington.

“I hope a re-elected President Bush would use the chance offered by his re-election for a new beginning in European-American and German-American relations,” Voigt said, adding that the US leader would do well to “approach the Europeans, and say, let us sit down and talk about where we have common interests.”

“That is necessary on the Middle East, it is necessary and possible in fighting terrorism and in the question of the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, but it is also needed in the question of Aids, climate protection and other issues.”

Interior Minister Otto Schily said that “German-American relations are an important foundation for our policies and that will remain the case whoever wins.”