President Barack Obama and German Chancellor Angela Merkel Hold Media Availability at Dresden Castle, As Released by the White House

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President Barack Obama and German Chancellor Angela Merkel Hold Media Availability at Dresden Castle, As Released by the White House

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA AND GERMAN CHANCELLOR ANGELA MERKEL HOLD A MEDIA AVAILABILITY AT DRESDEN CASTLE, AS RELEASED BY THE WHITE HOUSE

JUNE 5, 2009

SPEAKERS: PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA

GERMAN CHANCELLOR ANGELA MERKEL

[*] MERKEL (THROUGH TRANSLATOR): We are delighted to have the American President here this morning with us, after having met the last time at the NATO summit. We will visit a little bit of Dresden and later on we go on to Buchenwald, to the former concentration camp. I think that this is, indeed, a trip of a highly symbolic nature.

Let me just remind all of us of the visit to Buchenwald that we will take later in the day. It is so important that the American President, Barack Obama, makes his first stop here in Dresden. This is a highly symbolic city. It is a city that was almost completely destroyed during the Second World War, was then rebuilt after Germany unification. It has again turned out to be a jewel of German culture and civilization.

The people here are so glad that you've come to see them because it shows that you also pay tribute to the tremendous efforts they made in those 20 years after the fall of the wall.

We have made very good use of that time, talking about the political agenda, pressing issues. President Obama yesterday gave a very important speech in Cairo, which I think will be an ideal basis for a lot of action of a positive nature, particularly as regards speeding of the peace process in the Middle East.

We also talked about a possible time frame for possible progress to be ...

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