The United States and France have agreed to discuss possible joint steps on Algeria, where massacres are creating new panic in a country which has been wracked by five years of bloody civil strife. State Department spokesman, Mr James Rubin, said the US Secretary of State, Ms Madeleine Albright, raised the issue with the French Foreign Minister, Mr Hubert Vedrine.
They "agreed that this is a useful subject for France and the United States to begin a dialogue about", he said. They wanted to explore "whether there is something that an extensive and substantive dialogue between us might be able to produce in terms of action in that area". However, Mr Rubin was unable to say what options might be likely.
"I don't think they got into that level of detail," he said, adding that aides would meet at an unspecified later date "to see if there is anything specific we can do".
The two ministers met before the German Foreign Minister, Mr Klaus Kinkel - breaking a virtual silence in the UN General Assembly on massacres in Algeria - asked on Wednesday how long the international community could look away. "The vileness of the latest carnage in Algeria would take some beating. It really does take your breath away," he said.
He was referring to the almostdaily slaughter of civilians, often involving the cutting of throats, mutilation or decapitation, in Algeria's five years of civil strife blamed on Muslim fundamentalist guerrillas trying to topple the government.
Mr Kinkel continued: "How long can the international community look away? I do know how difficult it is to help from the outside, but we cannot accept a situation where we have completely innocent people be killed in a very cruel manner at night in the dark without the world community standing up and reacting.
"We are not impotent in the face of such evil slaughter of mostly uninvolved persons," he added. He was the first speaker to mention the slaughter in Algeria since the start on Monday of the General Assembly debate involving heads of state and government and foreign ministers.
AFP adds from Bonn: Germany's opposition Alliance90/ Greens party has called on the governments in France and Germany to help settle the conflict in Algeria, in a resolution submitted to parliament yesterday.
Three days after one of the worst massacres in the north African country left scores of people dead, the party said Germany and its European partners, notably France, Algeria's former colonial power, should weigh the idea of an international conference.
International mediation was necessary because Algiers was unable to solve the crisis, the party resolution said. The party called on the Bundestag, Germany's lower house of parliament, to take the Algeria issue before the UN Security Council.
The Alliance90/Greens also called for those expulsions of Algerian nationals, whose asylum requests in Germany had been turned down, to be suspended.
Algerian independent newspapers have reported that up to 252 people were killed and 50 wounded in the massacre on Monday near Algiers.
The Algerian government, however, has insisted that the toll was 85 and has dismissed reports of higher tolls.