BERLIN, (Islamweb & Agencies) -German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder said after meeting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in Berlin Tuesday that the Mitchell Report, which calls for a freeze on Israeli settlements, was the "central instrument" towards reaching peace in the Middle East.But Assad did not mention the Mitchell report, saying instead at a joint press conference with Schroeder that "UN resolutions must be applied. Each of us must work on implementing the UN resolutions," apparently referring to demands for an Israeli withdrawal from the occupied territories
Schroeder said Tuesday that implementing the Mitchell report did not mean that each of its details must be put into the practice.
He said he felt that the significance of the report was that it could "be a central instrument" towards reaching peace.
Assad arrived in Germany Tuesday as the government sought to reassure Jewish groups over the two-day visit of the Syrian leader, ironically accused of anti-Semitism by Israel. (Read photo caption below).
The Syrian leader refused at the press conference to answer a question by an Israeli journalist who asked about allegedly anti-Semitic remarks attributed to Assad. But while in Madrid last month Assad ridiculed the accusations as he himself as an Arab is Semetic.
In a communique Tuesday, the German government said Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer had already addressed Jewish concerns about Assad when Fischer opened the Israeli embassy in Berlin on May 9.
When Pope John Paul II was in Damascus in early May, Assad accused the Israelis of "trying to kill religions in the same way (the Jews) betrayed Jesus Christ, in the same way they tried to kill the prophet Mohammad."
Shroeder described Syria as a "key country for peaceful development in the Middle East."
PHOTO CAPTION:
German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, right, and Syrian President Bashar Assad, left, listen to the national anthems in the Chancellery in Berlin, Tuesday, July 10, 2001. Assad is on a two-day-visit to Germany. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber)