Israel PM to meet German leader

The Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is in Berlin for talks with the German chancellor, BBC reported.

Angela Merkel is expected to call on the Israeli leader to freeze construction of West Bank settlements.

The visit comes a day after talks in London with a US Middle East envoy after which he suggested Israel was close to an agreement on settlements.

Mr Netanyahu is also expected to be given original blueprints of the Nazi death camp at Auschwitz.

The presentation will be made during a visit to a villa from where senior Nazis planned the extermination of the Jews.

He will be the first Israeli prime minister to visit since the site, on Lake Wannsee on the outskirts of the capital, was opened.

The plans, which date from 1941-2, were found in a Berlin flat last year and include technical drawings for a gas chamber and crematorium - a symbol of the difficult history which connects Germany with the Jewish state created after the Nazi Holocaust.