Former chancellor criticizes Merkel in new book

Former chancellor criticizes Merkel in new book

BERLIN -- Former German Chancellor Helmut Kohl has made a series of derogatory remarks about Angela Merkel in his new book, due to be published soon.

He described the current chancellor as an incompetent politician who could not even eat properly with a knife and fork.

The German daily Der Spiegel has published excerpts from the biography that devotes a large amount of space to Merkel, who arrived to the top echelons of German politics in 1999 after Kohl was forced to withdraw from politics due to corruption accusations.

"Merkel has no ideas. I have always had to correct her and teach her how to hold a knife and fork during state dinners in the 1990s," he wrote.

The former German politician also wrote about the relationship with the former USSR leader Mikhail Gorbachev, as well as with members of his former party, the Christian Democratic Union.

Helmut Kohl was elected party president in 1973 and became chancellor nine years later, spending 16 years in the job. He was one of the initiators of the German unification.