‘SPD: Merkel mishandles Syrian crisis’

Angela Merkel’s hesitation over the question of military intervention in Syria has become a campaign issue in the run-up to general elections on September 22.

On September 6, at the G20 in St Petersburg, the Chancellor refused to sign a resolution backed by 10 of her counterparts demanding “a strong international response” to chemical attacks attributed to Bashar al-Assad’s regime. However, she eventually signed the document a day later at the EU foreign ministers’ summit in Vilnius.

With two weeks left to run before the vote, the social democrats have “criticised a diplomatic blunder on the part of the German government,” military intervention in Libya.