Germany's Schroeder woos Southeast Asia

Germany's Schroeder woos Southeast Asia

German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder began Europe's courtship of Southeast Asia on Monday, meeting Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad for talks aimed at building economic and political ties.

Schroeder, who will visit three other countries in the region this week, is beating a path that French President Jacques Chirac and Russian President Vladimir Putin are expected to follow.

Meanwhile, the Indonesian foreign ministry confirmed on Monday that Chirac and Putin would visit Indonesia sometime this year.

Like all three European leaders, Malaysia's Mahathir firmly opposed the U.S.-led war in Iraq, preferring a United Nations solution to its weapons crisis, a subject Schroeder only touched on in his set-piece speech.

"The United Nations is the best venue to discuss and debate the threats and challenges facing the world community as a whole," he said, without mentioning Iraq.

"It is above all the United Nations through which international law, the instrument to regulate our international relations, must be safeguarded and developed," he added.

Schroeder trimmed his Asia tour to allow for a meeting in Berlin on Friday with U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell, the most senior U.S. official to visit Germany since relations soured over Berlin's vocal opposition to the invasion of Iraq.

Schroeder is the first German chancellor to visit Malaysia, and while the two countries are not major trading partners, German firms, led by industrial giant Siemens AG, are chasing major deals in the country.

Siemens President and Chief Executive Officer Heinrich von Pierer made the trip out to Kuala Lumpur. Siemens is taking over an existing Malaysian rail deal worth 100 million euros (US$113.4 million). It already has a 71 million euro stake in the Malaysian project, which is part of a grand plan for a rail link from Singapore to China.

Schroeder heads home on May 16, after visits to Singapore, Indonesia and Vietnam. -- Reuters