Germany's president told Turkey on Monday that its future lies with Europe but the relationship is threatened by the government's recent attempts to muzzle the media and judiciary.

"We see this nation's future in cooperation with Europe, although we cannot tell how and when because we don't know," President Joachim Gauck told a news conference during a landmark four-day visit.

The German government on Monday dismissed as "absurd" remarks by former Italian premier Silvio Berlusconi about the Holocaust which have sparked outrage across Europe.

"This is what I will say for the German government on the subject: the claims that were reported are so absurd that the government won't comment on them," Chancellor Angela Merkel's spokesman Steffen Seibert told reporters.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel will visit U.S. President Barack Obama next week to discuss international security, trade and other issues, Berlin said Friday.

"What now worries all of us, the very serious situation in eastern Ukraine, will be a central focus, as well as how to react to it," said Merkel's spokesman Steffen Seibert, also citing transatlantic economic and trade issues.

Germany's foreign minister warned Wednesday that the crisis in Ukraine was getting "harder and harder" to resolve, as the most serious confrontation between Moscow and the West since the Cold War showed no sign of abating.

"Each day that passes... makes a solution harder and harder to reach," Frank-Walter Steinmeier said while on a trip to Moldova, urging Moscow and Kiev to seize the "opportunity" of a deal reached in Geneva last week to defuse the crisis.

German prosecutors have said they're investigating an alleged Lebanese member of a hard-line Islamic group in Syria and two suspected accomplices accused of helping him procure money and supplies.

Federal prosecutors said Thursday the main suspect is believed to have trained and fought in Syria last year with the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, an al-Qaida-linked group.

Croatia extradited a former Yugoslav spy chief to Germany on Thursday to face charges for the 1983 murder of a dissident on German soil.

Zdravko Mustac, accompanied by German police, left the Croatian capital on a regular Lufthansa flight for Munich, the state-run HINA news agency reported.

Germany said Monday there are many signs Russia is backing pro-Kremlin militias who have seized government buildings in eastern Ukraine, including the arms, uniforms and appearance of their members.

Chancellor Angela Merkel's spokeswoman said Berlin "is worried about the further aggravation of the situation in the east of Ukraine", and that Merkel had discussed the issue with Britain's Prime Minister David Cameron.

Ukraine's interim president on Monday made a dramatic about-face aimed at defusing tensions in the separatist east by backing a national referendum on turning the ex-Soviet republic into a federation with broader regional rights.

European powers meanwhile sought to raise the pressure on Russia -- which it blames for fomenting the tensions -- with Britain calling for "further sanctions" on Moscow ahead of a meeting of EU foreign ministers.

Myanmar's opposition leader and Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi warned on Friday that her country, despite a spate of reforms hailed by the international community, "is not yet a democracy."

Speaking in Berlin to accept a human rights award, she said the country formerly called Burma still needs a democratic constitution, true national reconciliation and a change of mindset among its ex-military rulers.

The rate of inflation in Germany, Europe's biggest economy, fell to its lowest level in more than three years in March, official final data showed on Friday.

The cost of living rose by 1.0 percent on a 12-month basis this month, down from 1.2 percent in February, the federal statistics office Destatis said in a statement.