Berlin: Germany's chancellor on Friday urged emerging nations to play a stronger role in global affairs, in line with their growing economic clout, stressing the developed world could not resolve all conflicts.
"It should be a quasi-automatic consequence of the emerging world's economic development that they take more responsibility in resolving regional conflicts," Angela Merkel told a foreign policy think-tank in Berlin.
"The United States and Europe will very quickly be overwhelmed if we try to intervene in conflicts all over the world. We therefore have a duty to support emerging countries and regional organisations."
Merkel cited as examples South Africa; Angola, which heads the 15-nation Southern African Development Community (SADC) and Nigeria, current head of the West African bloc ECOWAS.
However, she said the developed world needed to back up its words with actions.
"If we decide not to intervene directly in a conflict, it is usually not enough to offer words of encouragement to other countries or organisations," insisted Merkel.
This includes arms sales, "of course according to clear and transparent principles," said the chancellor, who came under fire on a trip to Africa for offering to sell patrol boats to Angola.
"If we, as NATO members, agree that we can't manage all conflicts on our own, we should step-by-step move towards a common arms exporting policy," she said.
Bureau Report
First Published: Saturday, September 10, 2011, 12:46