Germany's new foreign minister, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, is to visit Israel and the West Bank next week, aides said in Berlin on Friday.
He is to meet Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday and later travel to Ramallah to meet with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, dpa reported.
Steinmeier reclaimed the post he held from 2005 to 2009 when Chancellor Angela Merkel set up a new government last month.
He is to attend a meeting Sunday in Paris of the Friends of Syria before flying to the Middle East later in the day. The Paris meeting is in preparation for the international peace conference on Syria set for January 22 in Montreux, Switzerland.