Germany has seen a rise in anti-foreigner attacks and political violence as well as Islamic militancy, the government said in an annual report Wednesday.

Anti-foreigner attacks by the far right rose 20.4 percent to 473 reported incidents last year, said the domestic intelligence agency, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution.

Iran hopes to start drafting a nuclear agreement with world powers Wednesday but accepts tough negotiations lie ahead on a raft of issues, one of its top negotiators said.

Abbas Araqchi said Iran still hoped its differences with the six powers can be settled by a July 20 target date for a comprehensive deal, but that it "won't be a catastrophe" if the negotiations have to be extended for another six months.

Germany's deputy chancellor Sigmar Gabriel hinted in a newspaper interview on Wednesday that France and Italy could be given more time to get their finances in order.

In comments which could restart a debate over austerity and growth in Europe, Gabriel struck a conciliatory tone to countries struggling to meet the EU's strict fiscal rules.

Germany's federal police on Sunday announced the arrest of a French national suspected of fighting for radical jihadists in Syria.

A spokesman told Agence France Presse that the man was picked up in Berlin late Saturday after flying in from Istanbul and was believed to have spent time in Syria where he allegedly joined the jihadist Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.

German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier warned Sunday that the bloody conflict in Iraq could quickly spin into a regional "proxy war". 

Steinmeier, speaking to the Welt am Sonntag newspaper, called on Turkey, the Gulf Arab states and Iran to do their part to stabilise Iraq.

The leaders of France and Germany Saturday voiced "extreme concern" over the ongoing violence in Ukraine and called for a ceasefire after 49 died when pro-Russian separatists shot down an army plane.

During a telephone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin, French President Francois Hollande and German Chancellor Angela Merkel "stressed the importance of rapidly reaching a ceasefire in Ukraine," according to a statement issued by Hollande's office.

Inflation in Germany, Europe's biggest economy, slowed to its lowest rate in four years in May, weighed down by falling energy prices, data showed on Friday. 

According to final data compiled by the federal statistics office Destatis, German inflation slowed to 0.9 percent last month, its lowest level since February 2010.

Germany will accept 10,000 more refugees from war-ravaged Syria, officials said Thursday, even as Berlin faced calls from rights groups to do more.

Interior ministers at both federal and regional level agreed to double Germany's intake of Syrian refugees, a statement by the regional interior ministry in western North Rhine-Westphalia said.

Germany's foreign minister on Tuesday said that all sides appear committed to defusing the conflict in Ukraine following three-way talks with his Russian and Polish counterparts, but Moscow warned there was no sign of the fighting subsiding.

Russia's top diplomat Sergei Lavrov said the Kremlin welcomed Ukraine's decision to establish humanitarian corridors in the separatist east but stressed that Moscow has yet to see an easing in the crisis.

Violent storms killed at least six people in western Germany overnight, felling trees and snarling road and rail traffic, authorities said Tuesday.

Three people died in Duesseldorf when a towering poplar tree whipped by wind, hail and rain fell on a garden shed where they had sought shelter late Monday, the fire brigade reported.