A German journalist handed over by Syria to the Russian envoy in Damascus Tuesday has left the strife-torn country and is now at the German embassy in Lebanon, Germany's foreign ministry said.

German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle is "relieved" that Billy Six, who works for the Junge Freiheit weekly and went missing in Syria late December, is now in the "safe care" of the embassy in Beirut, a ministry spokesman said.

Syrian Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal al-Meqdad on Tuesday handed over to the Russian ambassador a German journalist, Billy Six, whose employers said had been out of contact for almost four months.

"The aim of the meeting is to hand over the German journalist to the Russian ambassador," Muqdad said at a press conference in Damascus.

The leader of Germany's opposition voiced support on Friday for Turkey's full membership of the EU, describing it as a "win-win" for Ankara and Europe.

Turkey's efforts to join the 27-member bloc have stalled in recent years, largely due to its long-running dispute with Cyprus and fierce opposition from other EU states.

The German labor market continues to defy the eurozone debt crisis, with the jobless total falling to its lowest level in five months in February, official data showed on Thursday.

On the face of it, headline unemployment rose this month, but that was primarily due to seasonal factors, monthly data compiled by the Federal Labor Office showed.

France and Germany urged the new government in Cyprus on Monday to negotiate a bailout quickly and welcomed the election of rightwinger Nicos Anastasiades as the president of the financially crippled EU state.

The leader of the right-wing Disy party won 57.5 percent of the vote in a second round run-off against communist-backed Stavros Malas, who polled 42.5 percent, to replace the only communist president in the European Union.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Saturday said she is in favor of opening up a "new chapter" in talks related to Turkey's bid to join the European Union, saying that even though she remains skeptical, discussions need to move forward.

"We conduct negotiations without the result being fixed in advance. These negotiations have stalled a little recently and I am in favor of opening a new chapter in these talks so we can advance," Merkel said in her weekly video message, but added "a long path of negotiations lies ahead of us".

Kosovo's culture minister on Friday said Germany had returned seven millennia-old artefacts that were smuggled out during the 1998-1999 war with Serbia and were unexpectedly found in a German police raid.

The seven terracotta items, including a small bowl, date back to the neolithic era, between 3,500 to 4,000 BC. They were found by German police in an unrelated investigation against two Serbs several years ago, Memli Krasniqi said, adding that it took a while to confirm the items came from Kosovo.

Germany is not seeking to impose its will on the rest of Europe, the country's president said Friday, also urging Britain to stay inside the Europe it helped "save" after World War II.

President Joachim Gauck delivered an impassioned speech on Europe, his first since taking over the largely ceremonial office 11 months ago, lamenting that its economic crisis had also hit confidence in its "political project".

German business confidence rose to the highest level for 10 months in February, data showed on Friday, amid growing optimism that Europe's top economy has put the worst of the eurozone debt crisis behind it.

The Ifo institute's closely watched business climate index for Europe's top economy rose to 107.4 points in February -- the highest reading since April 2012 -- from 104.3 points a month earlier.

Germany's foreign minister on Wednesday called for squabbling factions in Tunisia to come together "in a spirit of dialogue" after Prime Minister Hamadi Jebali resigned amid a political crisis.

Guido Westerwelle said in a statement that Berlin was "very closely watching" the situation in the North African country "in these critical days for its democratic development."