German Chancellor Angela Merkel recently said her government is willing to directly participate in the settlement of the Korean Peninsula nuclear issue. Our reporter Li Wanmei interviewed German experts to find out about Germany's possible role.

 

German Chancellor Angela Merkel recently expressed her willingness to directly participate in resolving the nuclear issue on the Korean Peninsula. Dr. Sebastian Harnisch, professor of International relations at the University of Heidelberg says there are two reasons for this statement.

 

SEBASTIAN HARNISCH INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS PROFESSOR, UNIVERSITY OF HEIDELBERG  First of all, we have national elections approaching, and the chancellor wants to make clear that she has the foreign policy competence to solve international crisis, and secondly of course the German chancellor and Germany has taken part in the negotiations to prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear power. And therefore it feels it is confident enough and has enough experience in those difficult international negotiations to be helpful to other parties to prevent the crisis from further escalation.

 

So what kind of role will Germany play if it is to participate in the settlement of the issue?

 

SEBASTIAN HARNISCH INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS PROFESSOR, UNIVERSITY OF HEIDELBERG What could the Europeans bring to the table or Germany bring to the table, of course, maybe they are a little bit more independent in the eyes of the North Koreans in terms of negotiating deals, because other parties concerned such as China and the United States have had increasingly strained relations with Pyongyang lately. And therefore, maybe a European capital could facilitate talks or track to talks between North Korea and some or all of the parties concerned.

 

Whether Merkel will actually join the negotiations remains a big question mark. However promoting peaceful negotiations as well as strengthening the sanctions reflects the core concepts of Germany. Li Wanmei, CGTN, Germany.