Olive branch

After years of violent conflict, the rivalrous Bandidos and Hell's Angels biker gangs released statements through their websites Tuesday saying they would officially end their quarrel.

"After more than two months of preparation time, a path to a future coexistence was found and the conflict between the two clubs is officially ended, effective immediately," the statement on the Hell's Angels website said.

Influential leaders from both groups planned to announce their agreement at a joint press conference Wednesday afternoon at a law office in Hanover.

Olive branch, or ploy?

Experts say the fight between Hell's Angels and Bandidos lies in their alleged involvement with illegal prostitution and the drug trade. Police have attributed many bloody confrontations in recent months to turf wars and shows of strength.

Accordingly, many politicians have reacted with skepticism to the gangs' announcement, which comes just days before a meeting of the 16 state interior ministers and the federal interior minister in Hamburg on Thursday and Friday.

Among the topics of the meeting is a potential ban on the groups, which has already taken place against several local chapters of the gangs in the northern state of Schleswig-Holstein.

Karl Peter Bruch, interior minister of the western state Rhineland Palatinate, said he supports the ban. Even if the peace agreement stuck, "for me as interior minister, that is not a reassuring message," he told the Hannoversche Allgemeine Zeitung. "Maybe even the opposite."

Police officials have been equally as skeptical, with Schleswig-Holstein state criminal office spokesman Uwe Keller saying the police would fight hard against all criminal behavior.

"It doesn't matter who makes peace with whom," he said.

acb/dpa/AFP
Editor: Rob Turner