Germany firmly reject that, she said.
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Merkel told reporters that the assailants “wanted to undermine our sense of community, our openness and our willingness to help people in need”. They sow hatred and fear between cultures.
Merkel vowed to boost security and improve counterterrorism measures, but she stood firm on Germany’s position of accepting almost all asylum seekers found to be legitimate refugees.
Merkel called the attacks “shocking, aggrieving, and also depressing”, but said Germany will continue to welcome with open arms the flood of refugees from the Middle East and North Africa pouring into Europe.
Mrs Merkel said the recent attacks involving asylum-seekers would not change her open-door policy to refugees.
Police secure the area after an explosion in Ansbach, Germany, July 25, 2016. Unfortunately we can not ask the victims of the recent attacks whether they see it exactly the same way.
“I am convinced, just as earlier, that we can make our historical task well in the time of globalization”, Merkel reiterated.
Germany will do “everything humanly possible” to ensure security, she said, though there will have to be a “thorough analysis” before specific new measures are drawn up.
On July 18, an alleged Afghan refugee injured at least four people with an ax on a train in Bavaria.
Defending her decision to stop applying European Union asylum rules to Syrian refugees, she said she had “acted in line with my knowledge and conscience”.
Two of them were the first in Germany claimed by the extremist Islamic State group.
Merkel, however, reaffirmed her position that Germany would uphold its principles in giving shelter to those who need and deserve it.
Germany has taken in more than 1.3 million refugees, asylum seekers and others since past year, including many fleeing Syria and elsewhere.
She said it was irrelevant whether the refugee attackers “had come to Germany before or after 4 September” a reference to her historic decision on that night in 2015 to open the German border to more than 10,000 refugees who were stranded in Hungary.
The chancellor said she broke off her holiday to hold her summer press conference earlier than planned in light of the horrific assaults.
Ms Merkel was speaking after a week of violence that has plunged Germany into a mood of uncertainty and fear.
The assailants who used their time in Germany to plan and launch attacks, “shamed the country that welcomed them”, she said.
“It doesn’t matter whether [the attackers] arrived before or after 4 September”, she added, referring to the day past year when she opened Germany’s border to refugees. We will take the challenge of integration very seriously..
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The 18-year-old German-Iranian gunman killed nine people in a shopping mall in Munich on June 22, injuring dozens more in a shoot-out that ended in the gunman shooting himself.
