German FM hopes Geneva II will convene

The new German foreign minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier Tuesday hoped that the Geneva II conference on Syria will take place as planned on 22 January. "I hope that it really takes place. Many are working on this. I hope this will take place with the participation of those one needs in order to make some small progress," he told reporters in Brussels after a meeting with the President of the European Parliament Martin Schulz. Speaking in German, Steinmeier said he did not know who from the opposition groups will go to Geneva and also under which circumstance neighbours of Syria will take part. He referred in particular to Iran and its participation in the Geneva conference. "These are open questions which I hope can be resolved in the coming days," he stressed. Steinmeier said one should not only be satisfied with the destruction of the chemical weapons in Syria but the next step must be the opening of human corridors, or at least a moment of cease-fire that allows the humanitarian supply of the civil population inside Syria. "Without this hope public opinion might see no signification in a Syria conference. In one word, we must achieve the possibility for concrete progress in such a Syria conference," he added. Steinmeier said In his meeting with Schulz they also discussed the fact that European politics has to be more than crisis management or to overcome this crisis. "We must make sure with those tools we have and very much right now in those months before the election of the European parliament, that the credibility loss of European politics in those times of crisis does not spread further," he noted.