Merkel welcomes Mubarak resignation

BERLIN - German Chancellor Angela Merkel voiced delight Friday at the resignation of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.

“We are all witnesses to an historic moment of change,” she told reporters at her Berlin office.

She said she hoped Egyptians would end up with a society “free of corruption, of censorship, of detentions and torture”. The changes had to be made irreversible and be accomplished in peace.

“They must culminate in free elections,” she said.