Berlin: No reason to speculate on military option in Syria

Germany sees no grounds to speculate on military options in Syria, a foreign ministry spokesman said Wednesday, a day after France's president said armed force was not ruled out.

"From the federal government's point of view, there is no reason to speculate over military options regarding the situation in Syria," spokesman Martin Schaefer told a regular government news conference.

He said the peace plan of UN-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan was the "best of all possible" options for action and warned of the need to avoid the unrest "spreading like wildfire in the region".

French President Francois Hollande said Tuesday that the use of armed force could be possible in Syria following the Houla massacre, but that it had to be carried out under UN auspices.

Germany, Britain, France, the United States and other Western nations have expelled Syrian diplomats in the wake of a massacre at the weekend in which 108 people, mainly women and children, were killed in the area of Houla, in central Syria.

Schaefer said Germany would not rule out further sanctions on the regime in Damascus as the international community seeks to increase the pressure to end the bloody unrest that erupted in March last year.

Angela Merkel's spokesman told the same briefing that the issue of Syria would "very likely" be a topic of discussion between the chancellor and Russian President Vladimir Putin when the latter visits Berlin on Friday.