Germany's Merkel under pressure after Rice debacle

"BERLIN (Reuters) - German Chancellor Angela Merkel faced mounting domestic pressure and her first big foreign policy challenge on Wednesday after a messy diplomatic spat with the United States over a German man held as a terrorist suspect.

Opposition politicians accused Merkel of failing to get answers from visiting U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on the case of the German man, Khaled el-Masri, and on wider concerns about U.S. methods in the war on terrorism.

"We heard only general explanations...I don't think yesterday brought us a single step forward," Heinz Lanfermann, a liberal member of parliament, told n-tv news.

His Free Democrat party and the fellow opposition Greens called for a parliamentary debate on Wednesday next week on the case of Masri, who was held for five months as a terrorist suspect by the United States in an Afghan prison last year.

A visit from Rice on Tuesday, intended as a bridge-building trip with Merkel's new government, veered badly from the intended script when the Masri case was raised.

While Merkel told reporters Washington had acknowledged it made a mistake in detaining him, a senior U.S. official said Rice had said no such thing.

"We are not quite sure what was in her head," he said, referring to Merkel."
Reuters