ALTENGRABOW (dpa-AFX) - New Defense Minister Boris Pistorius sees rapid resupply of equipment and weapons for the Bundeswehr as a key task. "The goal must be that we have faster, sustainable and sustained replenishment routes and times. It must be reliable," the SPD politician said Thursday during his inaugural visit to the force at the Altengrabow training area in Saxony-Anhalt.

There must be mutual planning security, he added. This applies to politics for orders, he said, while industry is responsible for delivery times. "This must be brought together. And if this means that more production resources have to be built up in Germany and in Europe, by the way, then that should happen," Pistorius said at the military training area.

Particularly when it comes to the issue of ammunition, it is also about the "question of quantity," he said in this regard. He said he also wanted to hold initial talks with the defense industry about this, presumably as early as next week. The minister was shown men and women of Logistics Battalion 171 practicing with small arms and armored infantrymen in live fire with the Puma infantry fighting vehicle.

Pistorius took office a week ago after predecessor Christine Lambrecht asked Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) to dismiss her. Her short tenure was accompanied by constant criticism and doubts about whether she was up to the task of turning the run-down armed forces back into a broadly combat-ready force./cn/DP/jha