BERLIN, Nov. 30 (Xinhuanet) -- German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Wednesday that her country would not be intimidated by terrorist blackmail after a German woman aid worker was kidnapped in Iraq.

    "We are not open to blackmail," Merkel said in her first speech to the Bundestag (lower house of parliament) after taking office on Nov. 22.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel (R) delivers her declaration on behalf of the government to the Bundestag, German lower house of parliament, at the Reichstag in Berlin Nov. 30. (Reuters)

    "We can not relent in the fight against international terrorism. It targets what is important to us and forms the core of our civilization," said Merkel, who issued a statement Tuesday strongly condemning the kidnapping.

    The German Foreign Ministry has set up a crisis team in a bid to save archaeologist Susanne Osthoff, 43, who has lived and worked in Iraq for years.

    The kidnappers demanded that the German government stop cooperating with the Iraqi government otherwise the woman and her Iraqi driver would be killed.

    Kai Hirschmann of the Institute for Research into Terrorism in Essen linked the abduction to the installation of Merkel's grand coalition government, saying that the terrorists wanted to send a message to the new German powers that be not to cooperate with the United States or the Iraqi government.

    Germany was against the US-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003 and did not send any troops there. Enditem