In 1993, the Foreign Office made a commitment to ending the war in the former Yugoslavia on a multilateral level, while the Federal Government deployed soldiers to Somalia within the scope of a UN mission. As part of the new Asia policy, Federal Chancellor Kohl and Foreign Minister Kinkel travelled to the Far East, as President Yeltsin and parliament inched closer toward a confrontation, the outcome of which Bonn could not afford to overlook.

Michael Ploetz; Jens Jost Hofmann; Tim Szatkowski, Institut für Zeitgeschichte, München Berlin.