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Foreign Minister Westerwelle: nothing must be done to undermine Lebanon’s fragile balance
Foreign Minister Westerwelle this evening (22 October) hosted a dinner at Villa Borsig for Espen Barth Eide, Norway’s new Foreign Minister, who is on his first bilateral visit to Berlin.
This gave both men the opportunity to continue the intensive and valuable dialogue Germany and Norway have been conducting for many years on energy issues, disarmament initiatives and other matters on the international agenda. They spent considerable time discussing the situation in the Middle East.
After the meeting Foreign Minister Westerwelle made the following comments:
Every one of the three major problems in the region – the civil war in Syria, the Iranian nuclear programme and the Middle East peace process – is a threat to stability and peace throughout the region.
Where they overlap, the threat is even greater. Nowhere is this more visible than right now in Lebanon. Germany wants to see a thorough and stringent investigation into last Friday’s assassination.
We urgently appeal to all concerned, and Hezbollah in particular, to refrain from anything that might undermine Lebanon’s fragile balance.
It cannot be in anyone’s interest to let the Assad regime deploy in Lebanon the same brutal tactics it uses against people in Syria.
