Berlin -- Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu arrived in Germany Wednesday for talks with Chancellor Angela Merkel and a visit to the lakeside villa where the Holocaust was planned.

Netanyahu, on the second and final leg of a European tour, arrived from London where he met US Mideast envoy George Mitchell and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown.

The Israeli premier and Mitchell issued a joint statement earlier Wednesday underlining the need for Israel and the Palestinians to start "meaningful" talks to revive the peace process.

But there was no sign of a breakthrough on the thorny issue of Israeli settlements, which a German government spokesman said would likely figure in talks with Merkel Thursday.

"The German government believes that no further settlements should be built in the occupied territories," spokesman Klaus Vater told a regular government news conference.

Netanyahu was also due Thursday to visit the site on the Wannsee lake on the outskirts of Berlin where senior Nazis adopted in January 1942 the "final solution" -- plans to exterminate all Jews in Nazi-occupied Europe.

A museum spokeswoman said he would be the first Israeli premier to visit since the memorial site opened in 1992.

Netanyahu is also to receive original blueprints of the Nazi death camp Auschwitz from a German publisher which he will give to the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial in Jerusalem.

AFP/Expatica