Old war wound healed

Germany and the Czech Republic will apologise to each other for Nazi war crimes and Czech excesses after World War Two against ethnic Germans in a joint declaration, according to a leaked draft document.

In the long-awaited declaration, Bonn apologises for Nazi brutality during the occupation of the former Czechoslovakia while Prague admits that innocent people suffered when the country's 2.5 million Sudeten Germans were expelled after World War Two. In the document, Bonn backs Czech ambitions to join the European Union and Nato.

Czech and German negotiators worked for two years to complete the declaration, which aims to close the book on 50 years of mistrust. Reuters - Prague