‘Germany won’t play active role in Syria airstrike’

By Ayhan Simsek

BERLIN

Germany will not play an active role for the time being in a U.S.-led military strike on Syria, government’s special coordinator said on Thursday.

Peter Beyer, who was recently appointed by Merkel’s government as the coordinator for transatlantic relations, condemned the chemical gas attack in but called for a diplomatic solution to the escalating crisis.

“The killing of a lot of people including women and children in Douma in Syria needs an answer. The Assad regime, as well as Russia, they have to understand this,” he told public television Welle.

While calling for a stronger stance against the al-Assad regime, he stressed that a military strike on the regime must be a last resort.

“My hope is that before any missile strike, there would be diplomatic talks including the UN Security Council,” he said.

Beyer, a conservative lawmaker from Merkel’s Christian Democratic bloc, also warned against direct confrontation between the U.S. and Russia.

“The stakes are high and dangerous out there,” he said.

“You see that Russian ambassador to Lebanon has used quite tough rhetoric saying, ‘we will down anything that comes from the US side and its allies.’ So this is something that worries me and others as well,” he added.

The German lawmaker ruled out, for the time being, his country’s active participation in a U.S.-led military strike on the Syrian regime.

“I think we won’t take an active role there,” he and noted that for now Germany only deployed a ship to accompany a U.S. destroyer in the Mediterranean Sea.

“But more than that, I don’t think we will see an active role by Germany here,” he said.