PREVIEW: Iran worry to accompany Peres on Holocaust Day Berlin visit

Jan 23, 2010, 15:24 GMT

Berlin - Calls to impose crippling economic sanctions on Iran over its nuclear program 'before it is too late' will accompany Israeli President Shimon Peres on his trip to Germany next week, when he attends ceremonies to mark International Holocaust Remembrance Day in Berlin.

The 86-year-old Peres, whose political career spans almost the whole history of the state of Israel, will give a speech to the Bundestag, or German parliament, on January 27, the date on which in 1945 the Auschwitz death camp was liberated by Soviet soldiers.

In the background to Peres' visit are the increasing diplomatic efforts by Israel to accelerate Western support for what Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has called 'crippling economic sanctions' on Tehran, after the latter's refusal to embrace a UN-sponsored compromise deal on its nuclear development programme.

In a wide-ranging interview with the Frankfurter Allgemeine newspaper published on Saturday, Peres said that Germany had a moral obligation to support such sanctions.

There was an imminent danger of a nuclear arms race in the Middle East, Peres said.

'On the day that the Iranians possess nuclear weapons, it will be too late to avoid that development,' he said.

In December, Tehran rejected a much-vaunted deal which would have seen its nuclear fuel for energy purposes processed by an intermediary.

'Economic sanctions must now finally be imposed. It is even more important, now that the Iranians themselves are rising against their government for their freedom,' Peres said in the interview.

On January 18, during the first ever German-Israeli cabinet consultations to take place in Berlin, German Chancellor Angela Merkel appeared to back Prime Minister Netanyahu in his call for rapid new sanctions.

'We have made it clear that if the reaction of Iran does not change, we will cooperate in the preparation of wide-ranging sanctions,' Merkel said, adding that preparations for such a move would begin in the coming weeks.

On January 26 in Berlin, Peres is to be received by the German President, Horst Koehler, at the Presidential Palace at Bellevue, and will also visit the 'Platform 17' memorial at the Grunewald railway station, from where tens of thousands of Berlin Jews were deported to extermination camps during the Holocaust.

On January 27 the Israeli president will precede his Bundestag speech with a reception at the chancellery and a walk-through of the Brandenburg Gate.

Assessing the state of German-Israeli relations since the end of the Second World War, Peres warned that the younger generation must not forget the lessons learned after the Holocaust.

'Young Germans do not understand (that) Germany has a special responsibility to stand by Israel in danger and in difficulty. Israel is still in danger,' Peres told the newspaper.

The discussions with Merkel will also focus on efforts to restart peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians.

On Saturday, the news magazine Der Spiegel reported that efforts by German intelligence service BND to mediate a prisoner swap - kidnapped Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit for around 1,000 Palestinian militants - were close to breaking down.