German SPD, Greens call for lifting sanctions

BONN -- Politicians of the German Social-Democratic Party (SPD) and the Green Party were quoted by the Hamburg weekly Welt am Sonntag Sunday as saying that the sanctions against Serbia should be lifted as soon as possible.

Deputy head of the SPD Bundestag grouping Gernot Erler said that sanctions were not an efficacious means of attaining the Western goals in Serbia.

Erler called for the sanctions to be lifted before the winter.

SPD foreign-policy expert Markus Meckel said that the issue of heating oil and gas deliveries to Yugoslavia should urgently be settled.

"The West has imposed a blockade against the Serbian people... This must urgently be changed," he set out.

Greens foreign-policy spokesman Helmut Lippelt also said that the West must not wait long to lift the sanctions against Serbia.

Lippelt openly conceded the total failure of the embargo introduced against Serbia by the Western countries with a view to arousing the wrath of the people and forcibly toppling the legal authorities in Belgrade.