BERLIN (AFP) - Germany's foreign and defence ministers said that a controversial proposed sale to China of a plutonium facility must be tied to a guarantee from Beijing only to use it for peaceful purposes.
Amid criticism in the ruling centre-left government over the planned sale, Defence Minister Peter Struck and Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer warned that any possible military use must be ruled out.
But both also suggested they saw no other potential stumbling-block to the export, saying it was right to examine the bid.
"The condition, of course, is a guarantee from the Chinese government that the plutonium factory will not be used for military purposes but for peaceful purposes to produce atomic energy," Struck told the Neue Presse daily.
If a guarantee was forthcoming, he said, "I would have no concern about the sale of the facility."
Fischer, the figurehead of the pro-environmental Greens, junior partner in the coalition, said his opposition to nuclear energy was clear but there were "sometimes situations where you have to make bitter decisions."
German Chancellor Schroeder, who has just ended a visit to China, promised earlier this week to study the bid for the plant at Hanau, western Germany.
Chinese foreign ministry (news - web sites) spokesman Liu Jianchao earlier Thursday confirmed that a Chinese company was in talks with the German technology group Siemens, which owns the plant, about purchasing it.
"This is completely a question of civil purposes and has no military goal," he said, adding it had "nothing to do with non-proliferation issues."
Fischer said it would be examined in the light of export law, including the issue of proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.
The facility was touted after completion in 1991 as Europe's biggest plant producing fuel for atomic power stations, but it never went into operation.
It was finally abandoned in 1995 partly under pressure from the Greens.
A previous proposal to export the technical equipment to Russia fell apart two years ago, again amid pressure from the Greens.
Senior Greens, such as its co-leader Angelika Beer, are demanding that the sale to China be refused too on the grounds that it is hypocritical for Germany, which has decided to phase out atomic energy, to export such a facility elsewhere.
Some of Schroeder's Social Democrats have also protested.
Struck admitted that it was "a highly emotional subject" but was confident the coalition would get over its differences.
In light of China's sterling record with WMD proliferation, there's nothing to worry about here. ---E_M_B