German Chancellor to discuss Darfur with China

August 25, 2007 (BERLIN) — German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Saturday she will discuss ways to combat human rights violations in Sudan’s Darfur region when she visits China on the first leg of a trip to Asia starting this weekend.

Merkel, whose country currently chairs the Group of Eight, sets off Sunday on her visit to China and Japan, which also is meant to deepen economic ties and further the German leader’s drive for action to fight global warming.

She made clear, however, that human rights also would be on the agenda. When she last visited China in May 2006, she said she had discussed the country’s human rights record and called it an “important issue of bilateral dialogue.”

“We have such close economic relations with each other, such close political relations, that we naturally also can discuss questions that are perhaps contentious – human rights, product quality; all of that is discussed in open dialogue,” Merkel said in her weekly video podcast.

“China has very close relations with Africa, and we naturally will speak about how we can combat the terrible human rights violations in Sudan, in the Darfur region,” she said.

China has been accused of not doing more to stop the bloodshed in Darfur, where more than 200,000 people have been killed and 2.5 million others displaced since February 2003.

After resisting calls for intervention, China dispatched a special envoy and lobbied Sudan to accept a United Nations peacekeeping force.

(AP)