German Foreign Minister Klaus Kinkel and his British counterpart Robin Cook agreed on Wednesday to propose to the European Union the sending of a fact-finding troika mission to Algeria to address the issue of the continuing violence, the German news agency ddpADN reported.

Germany and Britain plan to offer this recommendation to a meeting of the 15 regional commissioners of the EU foreign ministers, which will be held in Brussels on Thursday, German Foreign Ministry spokesman Martin Erdmann said.

"The troika mission, consisting of Britain, Luxembourg and Austria, would express Europe's worry over the continuing massacres of civilians," Erdmann said.

"In no case would it interfere in Algeria's internal affairs.

Rather, it is its task to look, together with Algeria, for solutions to combat terrorism.

The troika should not make any decision but only go on a fact-finding mission for the time being.

The issue is also helping the victims of the massacres and their relatives," the agency quoted the spokesman as saying .

BBC Monitoring (http://www.monitor.bbc.co.uk), based in Caversham in southern England, selects and translates information from radio, television, press, news agencies and the Internet from 150 countries in more than 70 languages.
 

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