Chancellor Merkel: No time now for big steps on Palestinians

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Tuesday in answer to a question that it is obvious to everyone that this is not the time for important steps on the Palestinian issue, however important. She spoke at a joint news conference with Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, when asked about the French initiative to promote the two-state solution of the conflict. Netanyahu thanked Merkel for Germany’s security cooperation with Israel. He dismissed the French initiative as strange and fated in advance to failure.