German Foreign Minister Fischer: "We Opposed War in Iraq for Good Reasons"

[Kellanved]

German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer discusses the possible deployment of German troops in Iraq, unclear weapons export guidelines, and Turkey's proposed acceptance into the EU.
...

SPIEGEL: Does this strict rejection on the issue of troop deployment also apply if there is a change in the US administration? The Democratic candidate, John Kerry, has already announced that he intends to return to multilateral approaches to resolving conflicts.

Fischer: I will not speculate on a potential new political majority situation in the United States. My comments relate exclusively to what is necessary in Iraq. After all, we opposed the war in Iraq for good reasons. And now the debate surrounding the original justification for the war has only confirmed our skepticism. My position, and that of the federal government, remains unchanged in this regard.

SPIEGEL: Then let us turn to the matter of Turkey. You seem to have been won over by the progress the Turks have made on the subject of reform. The country has only recently been deemed ready for negotiations to join the EU, and yet it is already being treated as a suitable candidate for shipments of German combat tanks.

Fischer: There have been no requests in this regard. Incidentally, we have clear standards, under which weapons cooperation with EU and NATO partners is generally considered acceptable. In Turkey, the realities in the southeastern portion of the country, as well as the human rights situation, have prompted us to adapt a cautious approach. If these realities change, however, our position will have to be reevaluated to reflect such changes.
...
http://service.spiegel.de/cache/international/0,1518,324188,00.html

[DuctapeFatwa]

1. Translation: We'd like to see some more "robust" figures

[LiviaOlivia]

2. Thanks Kel

for the link to der spiegel in English. I saw your post in "Media" earlier today. What took them so long?

Germany must, as all of us(me, US citizen), wait til after November 2.
If Bush wins re-election, Germany must criticize Bush at every opportunity. Be relentless and do not stay silent. Lobby German corporations in their dealings with the Bush government and US corporations.

We Americans are suffering now. We need our German cousins to stand up for what is right.

Peace.

[Kellanved]

5. I can only guess what took them so long

FWIW: the most important stories were translated for some time now. Not on a daily, but a weekly basis in cooperation with the NYT.


Anyway, it is probably quite expensive to run a bi-lingual news portal (bi-lingual writers and translators). To make it worthwhile, they have to attract an international audience big enough for interesting ad prices and they have to do so fast.
Now the Spiegel has about 80% agency news and 20% investigative journalism; the interesting part is with no doubt the investigative journalism - which happens to be almost entirely about German issues.

To make things worse, the conservative daily "FAZ" tried to get an international portal going during the .com boom and failed spectacularly.

That the Spiegel tries at all is due to it's unique ownership situation: it is owned by three parties: the Augstein(Spiegel's founder) Heirs, the Spiegel Journalists and the publishing group Gruner+Jahr.

[Name removed]

3. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[LiviaOlivia]

4. For starters, how do you justify Abu Grahib?

Just a few low ranking enlistees? End of story?

What an old propaganda website. Nothing new there dude. No 9/11 proof.

Also where are the pictures of Reagan and Bush 41 surrogates shaking hands and sending $$$$ and arms to Sadam in 1980's?