Stuttgart - A state government in Germany denied a claim Thursday that it had agreed to a temporary halt in controversial work to replace the city of Stuttgart railway station and rail lines.
Stefan Mappus, premier of Baden-Wuerttemberg state, told the German Press Agency dpa, 'There isn't any halt to construction.'
For months, a mainly middle-class protest movement has tried to block the work, citing its multi-billion-euro cost and disruption. When hundreds of people were injured last week in clashes with riot police, it became a national political issue.
Just before Mappus spoke, Heiner Geissler, a former general secretary of Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democratic Union, said he has secured a promise from the Deutsche Bahn rail company and Mappus to halt construction while peace talks proceed.
He spoke inside the 1928 station building that is at the centre of the tussle. Protesters are angry that one of its wings has already been demolished and trees nearby have been felled.
The chief bone of contention is the cost, which is mainly for cutting 23 kilometres of tunnels under the city to the station.
Geissler, who had reportedly been invited by Mappus to help settle the issue, said work had to stop so that the state of play does not change during the talks, which would begin next week.
'This mediation will at least help to weigh up and compare the facts and the arguments,' he said.
Deutsche Bahn also denied to a city newspaper that there was any moratorium on building.
The protests are led by a Stuttgart civic group and backed by the Green Party.
Tunnel supporters have urged Mappus to be resolute and squash troublemakers.
In a separate development, Germany's federal railways inspectorate ordered the rail company to stop felling trees in a park next to the station. It said nature-conservation rules on saving rare beetles in the trees had not been observed.
source: www.monstersandcritics.com
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