German President Joachim Gauck and his French counterpart Francois Hollande will commemorate the victims of World War I together on August 3 in eastern France, the German president's office said Friday.

"The president will travel to Vieil-Armand on August 3," a spokeswoman for Gauck said, referring to the former battlefield in the French region of Alsace.

Germany said Thursday it had accepted a U.N. request to destroy remnants of Syria's chemical weapons on its own soil as part of a bid to eliminate the arsenal by June 30.

The foreign and defense ministries said in a joint statement that the move was intended to speed up the scrapping of all of Syria's chemical weapons stocks and thus advance the peace process.

U.S. President Barack Obama on Wednesday invited German Chancellor Angela Merkel to Washington in an effort to mend fences after a diplomatic crisis provoked by revelations of U.S. eavesdropping on her mobile phone.

Obama called Merkel to wish her a speedy recovery after her recent skiing injury and invited her to visit at a "mutually agreeable time in the coming months," the White House said in a statement.

German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said Wednesday he backed Iranian involvement in a conference in Switzerland this month on ending the brutal nearly three-year-old war in Syria.

"My position is that we should try to include the neighbors -- Iran too," he said after talks in Berlin with his Swedish counterpart Carl Bildt.

A Croatian court on Wednesday backed the extradition of the country's former top spy to Germany, in a step towards calming a row between the European Union and its newest member.

The Zagreb court approved Germany's request for the extradition of Josip Perkovic under a European Arrest Warrant (EAW), which regulates extradition between EU member states, a tribunal's spokeswoman Ivana Calic said.

German prosecutors have charged an 88-year-old former soldier over the Nazis' worst atrocity on French soil, the 1944 massacre in the village of Oradour-sur-Glane, a court said Wednesday.

The suspect, who was not identified, is believed to have belonged to an armored division of the SS that attacked Oradour-sur-Glane and wiped out nearly all its inhabitants, an act of retribution ordered over the purported kidnapping of a commander.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel appeared publicly on crutches Tuesday for the first time since it emerged she had fractured her pelvis in a ski accident, to join children for carol singing.

Smiling broadly and looking relaxed, the 59-year-old chancellor, dressed in a smart teal jacket and dark trousers, negotiated a few steps to stand, leaning on her two crutches, among the 100 or so youngsters from across Germany.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has suffered a pelvis injury during a skiing holiday in Switzerland, putting her on the sidelines for the next three weeks.

Merkel's spokesman Steffen Seibert said Monday that the chancellor suffered what she first thought was just a bruise to her left rear pelvic area while cross-country skiing.

German vice-chancellor Sigmar Gabriel on Saturday called for a debate on the touchy issue of immigration from poorer EU states Romania and Bulgaria.

"I think it's not necessary to exaggerate this issue. But it shouldn't be minimized either," he said in an interview with Bild newspaper.

A former Croatian top spy sought by Germany whose case sparked a row between the European Union and Croatia, its newest member, was released from detention Friday pending an extradition ruling.

A court in Zagreb ruled that Josip Perkovic should be freed following an appeal from his lawyer, but he will not be allowed to leave the Croatian capital and his passport was seized, spokesman Kresimir Devcic told reporters.