German minister says won't quit over Guantanamo row

BERLIN, Jan 26 (Reuters) Germany's Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said he would not resign amid a growing media frenzy over his alleged role in keeping a German-born Turkish man in Guantanamo Bay prison.

Questions over Murat Kurnaz, freed last year without charge from the U S naval base, come at a difficult time for Steinmeier who is trying to focus on Germany's presidencies of the European Union and Group of Eight industrialised nations.

German media have accused the minister of helping to block Kurnaz's release when he was a close aide to former Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder in 2002.

In an interview with top-selling German daily Bild today Steinmeier said the Schroeder government had gone out of its way to address the Kurnaz case even though the prisoner had a Turkish passport.

''We spoke many times to the American government,'' the 51-year-old Steinmeier said. ''That is not something I am considering,'' he responded when asked if he would resign.

Steinmeier, one of the most popular politicians in Germany's centre-left Social Democrats (SPD), has denied charges in the media and in a European Parliament report that he received an official offer from the United States to release Kurnaz in 2002.

However, his denial has failed to calm the debate and the case threatens to tarnish his reputation as he shuttles round the globe as chief diplomat for Chancellor Angela Merkel, whose conservatives rule in coalition with the SPD.

Opposition politicians have demanded more answers from Steinmeier and in recent days members of Merkel's Christian Democrats (CDU) have taken off the gloves, taking shots at the minister for a range of other issues.

Eckart von Klaeden, foreign affairs spokesman for Merkel's CDU, singled out Steinmeier's December visit to Syria for criticism yesterday.

''Steinmeier's trip to Damascus was badly coordinated and too hasty,'' von Klaeden told the Tagesspiegel newspaper, noting both Washington and London were sceptical about the visit.

Questions over Kurnaz, arrested in Pakistan in 2001 and sent to Guantanamo, and over charges Berlin may have helped the CIA kidnap a German citizen of Lebanese origin, Khaled el-Masri, three years ago have haunted Steinmeier for more than a year.

The two cases have sparked outrage in Germany and prompted politicians to launch a parliamentary inquiry to find out what German authorities might have known about U S abductions and transfers of terror suspects.

Steinmeier, who has said he is willing to testify about Kurnaz to the parliamentary committee, was bombarded with questions about the case at meeting of European foreign ministers in Brussels earlier this week.

It could prove a major distraction just as he gets set for a series of trips to push Germany's EU and G8 agendas, including a visit to Washington next week to discuss Middle East peace.

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