German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier said the international legal order should be part of German identity but suggested Berlin avoid putting the country in a potential conflict with the International Criminal Court over the ICC’s arrest warrant against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

“We, in particular, should make the international legal order part of our own identity,” Steinmeier said in a radio interview with Deutschlandfunk. But he hinted that a potential conflict with the ICC should be avoided.

“This is a plea not to ignore international law but to avoid testing it in this case,” Steinmeier said. The interview, to be broadcast on Sunday, was obtained in advance by German agency DPA.

In the interview, Steinmeier was asked about the possibility that German Chancellor Friedrich Merz would ignore the ICC’s arrest warrant against Netanyahu. After coming out on top in the German elections earlier this year, Merz said that Berlin “would find ways and means for him to visit Germany and leave again without being arrested.”

The ICC arrest warrant against Netanyahu is for being allegedly responsible for war crimes, including using starvation as a means of warfare, and for crimes against humanity. The warrant means that countries backing the court, including Germany, are obliged to arrest Netanyahu if he enters their borders.

“I think it is a completely absurd idea that an Israeli prime minister cannot visit the Federal Republic of Germany,” Merz has said.

The EU, meanwhile, has found that Israel’s actions in the Gaza Strip may have violated the terms of the country’s association agreement with the bloc through the violation of human rights in Gaza, POLITICO reported last week.