Israel and Germany signed a joint declaration Wednesday for economic and technological cooperation, including an agreement to increase the funds of an existing joint research foundation to $180 million.
Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres was in Bonn for a two-day visit following meetings in Strasbourg with the European Parliament and in Geneva with United Nations officials.
Peres signed the cooperation agreement with his Germany counterpart Klaus Kinkel.
Peres also met with President Richard von Weizsacker, Chancellor Helmut Kohl and members of the Bundestag’s foreign affairs committee.
German and Israeli delegations, headed by the foreign ministers, discussed a number of topics, notably incentives for German investment in Israel and joint research projects on protecting the environment.
In remarks after initial meetings, Kinkel described German-Israeli relations as being smooth.
Kinkel added that Bonn fully understood the Israeli concern about gains made by German far-right groups in recent local elections in the state of Hesse. He said that everything possible should be done to confront popular support for the extremists.
During Peres’ meeting with the Bundestag, the last Communist prime minister of East Germany, Hans Modrow, criticized Israel for not dealing directly with the Palestine Liberation Organization. Modrow suggested the group was moderate and ready to talk. Peres responded angrily to Modrow’s comments, telling him that the statement should never have come from someone associated with a regime that used to train PLO terrorists.
Asked about the upsurge of anti-Semitism here, Peres expressed hope that Germany would cope with the problem. He said it was remarkable that anti-Semitism existed in some regions without even the slightest Jewish presence.
WILLING TO TALK WITH ARAFAT
In his visit to Strasbourg, Peres spoke with European Parliament members about the peace process.
“We hope that the peace negotiations will resume soon because there is a real chance to see them lead to a result in 1993,” he told members Tuesday.
Earlier in the trip, Peres said Israel hoped to sign a peace agreement with Syria before the end of the year.
In Strasbourg, Peres was visiting the European Community’s legislative body at the invitation of its president, the German Christian-Democrat Egon Klepsch.
“The problem is not between Israel and the Palestinians but between the Palestinians and the Hamas movement,” he said, referring to the Islamic fundamentalist group popular in the Gaza Strip and parts of the West Bank.
“If one doesn’t stop Hamas, no Palestinian force will be able to stop it. They will kill the negotiators and the peace negotiations,” he said.
Peres later told a news conference that he would be ready to talk directly to PLO leader Yasir Arafat “if this would help achieve peace,” under the condition that the PLO leader renounce terrorism.
After one journalist cited Arafat’s declaration in 1988 in which he officially renounced terrorism, Peres responded: “We judge men through their acts and not their declarations.”
(Contributing to this report was JTA correspondent Joseph Kopel in Brussels.)
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