GERMANY: German foreign minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier is under pressure to get answers from the White House today about alleged CIA secret flights of terrorism suspects across Europe.
The allegations will overshadow Mr Steinmeier's meeting with US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice, intended to mark a new beginning for Berlin-Washington relations strained over the Iraq war and to prepare for a visit by the chancellor Dr Angela Merkel in the new year.
Mr Steinmeier said he "couldn't say but couldn't rule out" that the alleged transport of prisoners would be discussed. "The foreign minister has to evaluate facts, not newspaper reports, but what there has been to read has definitely given grounds for concern," Mr Steinmeier of the Social Democrats (SPD) said at the weekend.
German newspapers have reported that CIA aircraft used European airports at least 15 times this year and 80 times since 2002, apparently to fly suspects to secret holding facilities where they were allegedly tortured and interrogated. Most frequently used, according to the reports, was the US base in Ramstein.
The Washington Post reported earlier this month that CIA holding facilities existed in eight countries in Asia and in eastern Europe. The US has not confirmed the existence of these facilities and several countries, including Poland, Romania and Bulgaria, have denied any knowledge of the jails.
Germany's Christian Democrat (CDU) defence minister, Franz Josef Jung, said he hoped for clarity in Washington about the matter, which he said was not so much about the secret flights but about whether torture took place at secret camps.
Mr Steinmeier's trip to the US was supposed to show how serious the new administration is to start a new chapter in US relations, but the CIA flights issue may frustrate efforts at a new beginning, particularly if it exposes foreign policy differences in Berlin's grand coalition.
"If the conservatives try to boost their profile in foreign policy at the expense of the SPD, there will be conflicts," Martin Schulz, head of the Social Democrat group in the European Parliament, told Der Spiegel magazine. "The SPD would have a problem if the government joins US strategies that it has rejected up to now."