|
BERLIN: German Chancellor Angela Merkel travels to Israel on Sunday
for a visit of major historical significance more than 60 years
after the end of World War II.
Merkel will be the first German chancellor to
address the Knesset when she gives a speech at the Israeli
parliament on Tuesday, an honor reserved normally for heads of
state.
She will visit Sde Boker on Sunday, the kibbutz
in the Negev Desert where Israel’s first prime minister David Ben
Gurion is buried and where in 1966 Ben Gurion met with Konrad
Adenauer, West Germany’s first chancellor.
Merkel, Germany’s first chancellor to be born
after the war, will travel to Israel accompanied by the top members
of her cabinet for a full inter-governmental conference.
Germany has previously only held such meetings
with France, Italy, Spain, Russia and Poland, and Israel’s cabinet
will return the visit in 2009.
The visit also comes ahead of celebrations in
May for the 60th anniversary of the creation of Israel. The German
Federal Republic marks its own 60th birthday in 2009.
This is “perhaps the most important visit ever
by a German head of government,” Israel’s ambassador in Berlin
Yoram Ben-Zeev told AFP, taking already “very good” relations to
a higher level.
-- AFP
|
