Efforts to press ahead with the Middle East peace process will figure prominently in talks between US President Barack Obama and German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Friday, according to dpa. The US president arrives in the eastern German city of Dresden on Thursday evening for a packed 24-hour visit that will also see him tour a former Nazi concentration camp and meet US soldiers wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan. The president was flying in from Cairo, where he gave a landmark speech to the world's 1.5 billion Muslims, calling for a two-state solution to the Middle East conflict and urging Iran to open a dialogue with the West on its controversial nuclear programme. During his second visit to Germany in 10 weeks, Obama will see some of the cultural highlights of Dresden, a city which was rebuilt after heavy bombing by Allied warplanes during World War II. His visit takes in the Gruenes Gewoelbe (Green Vault), a museum that contains the largest collection of treasures in Europe, and the Frauenkirche church, whose reconstruction was funded through donations from around the world. As well as touring Dresden, the president will pay his respects at the former concentration camp of Buchenwald, located near the city of Weimar in Thuringia state. There, the two leaders plan to meet Holocaust survivors, notably Jewish writer and Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel. The idea for the visit is believed to have come from a meeting Obama had with Wiesel, who survived Buchenwald and has written extensively about the Holocaust. It is also intended to show solidarity with Jews worldwide, coming on the heels of Obama's Middle East trip, which omitted Israel. By the end of World War II, Buchenwald was the largest Nazi concentration camp on German soil. Around 56,000 prisoners died through execution or maltreatment before the camp was liberated by US forces in April 1945. It is now a memorial. Obama's great-uncle, Charles Payne, was amongst the soldiers who liberated a subsidiary camp of Buchenwald on April 5, 1945. In addition to the Middle East, Obama and Merkel are also expected to discuss climate issues, the global economic crisis, German involvement in the NATO mission to Afghanistan and the nuclear threat posed by North Korea and Iran. Presidential advisors said the choice of Dresden for the meeting showed respect for Merkel, who has reportedly charmed Obama with stories of her life in former East Germany. The president will also pay a visit to injured American soldiers at the US military hospital in Landstuhl, undergoing treatment after tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan. From Germany, Obama travels to France where he will attend ceremonies in Normandy marking the 65th anniversary of the Allied D-Day landings.
