German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Wednesday hailed US air strikes against Islamist militants in Iraq, as her government prepared to send non-lethal military aid to the conflict-torn country.

The United States has targeted positions of the Islamic State jihadist group in the area of Mount Sinjar, where tens of thousands of members of the Yazidi minority have been besieged.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel warned Wednesday against severing ties with Russian President Vladimir Putin over the Ukraine crisis but said he must also do his part.

Merkel told the Saechsische Zeitung newspaper she was "working very hard to keep the lines of communication open" with Putin despite the EU's decision last month to level sanctions against Russia over its actions in the ex-Soviet state.

The leaders of France and Germany called Tuesday for the European Union to swiftly lend its weight to the humanitarian effort to help refugees in Iraq fleeing Islamic State militants.

In a joint statement, President Francois Hollande and Chancellor Angela Merkel said they wanted the EU to "participate as quickly as possible in the humanitarian operation under way to help the civilian population facing the acts of violence of Islamic State."

German Chancellor Angela Merkel congratulated Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan Monday on winning the election for the Turkish presidency and underscored the country's pivotal role in the troubled region.

"We are currently facing difficult challenges in the region," she said in a message sent to Erdogan and released by her office.

Germany has stopped a major deal to provide a fully equipped training camp to Russian forces due to the crisis in Ukraine, the government said Monday.

Vice Chancellor and Economy Minister Sigmar Gabriel said he has withdrawn his authorization for the training camp project, which had already been put on hold in March after Moscow's annexation of Ukraine's Crimea region.

Germany has decided to scrap a major deal to provide a fully-equipped training camp to Russian forces due to the ongoing crisis in Ukraine, according to a newspaper report Monday.

French President Francois Hollande and his German counterpart Joachim Gauck paid emotional tributes Sunday to the millions of soldiers who died during World War I, exactly 100 years after Germany declared hostilities against France.

The two leaders gathered at Hartmannswillerkopf to remember the 30,000 soldiers who lost their lives in fierce battles around the rocky peak known as the "man-eater" in France's Alsace region near the border between the two countries.

Thirty-five people were injured, four of them seriously, when a passenger train collided with a freight train late Friday near Mannheim station in southern Germany, the operator Deutsche Bahn said.

A German army general has for the first time been appointed chief of staff to work with the commander of U.S. ground forces in Europe, both countries' militaries said Thursday.

Brigadier General Markus Laubenthal will serve as "the right-hand man" to Lieutenant General Donald Campbell Jr, who commands more than 37,000 U.S. Army Europe (USAREUR) personnel from headquarters in the central city of Wiesbaden, said Germany's defense ministry.

Members of Germany's large Turkish community started casting ballots Thursday for the August presidential election, the first time they can vote abroad for a poll in their country of origin.

Germany is home to some three million people of Turkish descent, the world's largest Turkish expatriate community, and 1.4 million of these are eligible voters with Turkish nationality.