Germany hopes Saudi ambassador will soon return to Berlin – spokesman

The German government hopes that the Saudi ambassador will return to Berlin soon, a government spokesman said Wednesday. A prolonged diplomatic row had prompted the kingdom to pull its ambassador from the German capital. The spokesman said Saudi Arabia was an important partner in the region, with whom Germany wanted to cooperate. He added that the Saudi foreign minister had invited German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas to Riyadh, Reuters reports. The spat was triggered last November when Germany’s foreign minister at the time, Sigmar Gabriel, condemned “adventurism” in the Middle East. The comments were widely seen as an attack on increasingly assertive Saudi policies, notably in Yemen.