Jerusalem, Mar. 2, (dpa/GNA) – German Chancellor Olaf Scholz visited the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial during his inaugural trip to Israel on Wednesday, ahead of talks with Prime Minister Naftali Bennett.
The schedule also includes talks with Foreign Minister Yair Lapid and a visit to the Knesset, the Israeli parliament.
“We will never forget the suffering of millions and the victims!” Scholz wrote in German in the Yad Vashem visitors book.
The mass killing of Jews “conceived, planned and executed by Germans” in World War II gives “every German government a perpetual responsibility for the security of the State of Israel and the protection of Jewish life,” he wrote. He laid a wreath to the victims in the Hall of Remembrance.
Bennett said the Holocaust was a fundamental part of the relations between Germany and Israel, but that even with this wound from the past the countries had established strong ties.
Both leaders are relatively new to the office after many years of government led by Angela Merkel in Germany and Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel.
The major agenda item during Scholz’s visit is expected to be the war in Ukraine.
The trip had been planned long before the Russian invasion last week, and due to the dramatic situation, it was unclear whether it would even take place.
Israel could step in as a mediator in the war. Bennett has been playing a delicate balancing act between Kiev and Moscow, while his condemnation of Russian President Vladimir Putin has been more muted than others in the West.
According to media reports, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky raised the possibility with Bennett of Israel hosting negotiations between the sides.
Scholz has been on foreign visits to Paris, Brussels, Warsaw, Rome, Madrid, Washington, Kiev and Moscow since taking office almost three months ago.
GNA