Fischer Condemns Killing as "Cold-Blooded, Barbaric Act"

German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer on Wednesday strongly condemned the brutal videotaped killing of a U.S. hostage Nick Berg in Iraq apparently carried out in revenge for the mistreatment of Iraqi prisoners by American soldiers.

It was a "cold-blooded, barbaric act," Fischer said after holding talks with U.S. National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice towards the end of his three-day visit to Washington. Fischer's visit came in the wake of a widening scandal over the alleged abuse of Iraqi prisoners by U.S. soldiers in the Abu Ghraib prison outside Baghdad. The affair has sparked international outrage.

Speaking to reporters after talks with Rice, Fischer said he had expressed the shock and anger felt by Germans and all Europeans over the prisoner abuse scandal.

Fischer repeated demands that the scandal had to be "cleared at all costs" and said he had made clear to the Americans that those responsible had to brought to justice and that the conditions in Iraqi prisons had to be changed.

High-ranking members of the ruling Social Democratic Party in Germany went further, calling for the resignation of U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. Franz Müntefering, the general secretary of Chancellor Gerhard Schröder's SPD, said that had the same thing happened in Germany, there would be immediate change.

Power should be handed back to Iraqis

In an interview with German television broadcaster ZDF Fischer said he believed that an investigation into the events in Iraqi prisons was already underway. The minister however stressed certain decisions "were for the Americans to take." He added that the incidents in Iraq showed at the same time that "sovereignty had to be handed over to an interim Iraqi administration as soon as possible and that there should be elections in a few months."

Fischer and Rice also discussed the situation in the Middle East and a new U.S. initiative for a peace plan.

Talks on the issue will continue at the end of the week during the G-8 foreign ministers' conference in Washington as well as on Monday in Berlin, when Rice meets with Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Kureia in the German capital.

"Moral leadership" of the U.S. needed

Earlier Fischer also met U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell. Speaking to reporters after talks with Powell, Fischer said the United States must restore its "moral leadership" of the world by carrying out a full investigation of the abuse scandal.

"We need the United States, we need the moral leadership of the United States, it is important for the West, for all of us," he said.

In a subsequent interview with Berlin's Tagesspiegel newspaper, Fischer said Washington could strengthen its moral position by joining the International Criminal Court. The United States is one of several countries who don't officially recognized the court, based in the Hague, Netherlands.

German officials are hoping that the various investigations and inquiries underway by American authorities would lead to the U.S. regaining its moral weight, which Fischer said was "crucial for all us."

"Those who are responsible must be brought to justice," Fischer said.

As the scandal over the apparent systematic human rights abuses by U.S. forces in Iraqi prisons widens with the publication of new photographs of torture, anger has been growing in Germany at the perceived lapses on the part of the American military as well as the Bush administration.

Fischer told reporters that Germany had been "really shocked and deeply appalled" by the pictures that have been released of the prisoner abuse.

Powell: "Deplorable situation"

Powell also spoke to reporters, saying he and Fischer exchanged views on "how deplorable the situation is for all of us." He said all Americans were shocked by the images just as people around the world were, adding: "We are going to get to the bottom of this and make sure that justice is done."