"The existing deal is signed and final and there is no need to change it," said Steinbrueck after a meeting with chairman of the Center of Organizations of Holocaust Survivors in Israel, Noah Flug
By ETGAR LEFKOVITZ, JPOST.COM STAFFSteinbrueck 224 88(photo credit: AP)
Germany will not open talks on amendments to the Holocaust reparation agreement with Israel, visiting German Finance Minister Peer Steinbrueck said Thursday.
"The existing deal is signed and final and there is no need to change it," said Steinbrueck after a meeting with chairman of the Center of Organizations of Holocaust Survivors in Israel, Noah Flug
Flug said that although the reparation agreement with Germany would not be amended, if there are "specific problems" Germany would try to solve them.
"We didn't ask for money, we spoke of the responsibly of the German government," added Flug.
Steinbrueck did not meet with Pensioners Affairs Minister Rafi Eitan - who first raised the issue of reopening the landmark 1952 reparation agreements with Germany earlier this month.
One-third of pensioners in Israel are Holocaust survivors. Nearly a third of the country's 250,000 survivors live in poverty, recent welfare reports have shown.
The German finance minister was also due to meet with his Israeli counterpart, Ronnie Bar-On, and the governor of the Bank of Israel, Professor Stanley Fischer. He was then set to receive an honorary fellowship from the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya.
German officials had said that Germany would consider making "amendments in the existing framework" of the half-century old agreement in talks with the New York-based Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany.
if(catID != 151){
var cont = `Take Israel home with the new Jerusalem Post Store
