Russia and Germany stressed their intention to develop their good relations Saturday as new German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier made a first visit, DPA reported. The two sides agreed that new German Chancellor Angela Merkel would go to Moscow in mid-January for talks with President Vladimir Putin. Regular inter-governmental consultations would rsume in the Siberian city of Tomsk in March. These had been postponed in September because of German elections which saw Merkel end up head of a grand coalition of her Christian Democrats (CDU) and the Social Democrats of former chancellor Gerhard Schroeder. "The strategic partnership with Russia is not just continuing, but being developed," said Steinmeier, a Social Democrat who is a close associate of Schroeder. Schroeder had been seen as politically and personally close to Putin, which Merkel's CDU criticised him for in the election campaign, accusing him of favouring Russian interests over those of Poland and the former Soviet Baltic states.
