Frankfurt- The speaker of Germany's parliament acclaimed Israel on Wednesday as the "only functioning democracy in the Middle East," but noted that the 60th anniversary of its foundation was marred by the lack of peace.

Norbert Lammert was speaking at a ceremony in Frankfurt six days after Israel's own celebrations.

Lammert said: "The anniversary is not untroubled, since Israel still does not have secure borders or a peace with the Palestinians."

He quoted remarks a few days ago by the Israeli ambassador to Germany, Yoram Ben-Zeev, that Israel's great mistake of the past 60 years had been failing to achieve peace with the Palestinians.

The ambassador had left no doubt that Israel required change, said Lammert. Anyone one who had seen the poverty of Palestinians living in the Gaza Strip had to "ask about the Israeli responsibility for the current circumstances," he said.

Lammert was speaking to 800 guests of the Central Council of Jews in Germany and the Germany-Israel Society in the Paulskirche, a former church that was a birthplace of German democracy in 1848 and is now a Frankfurt public monument.

Israel completed 60 years on May 14, according to the internationally-used Gregorian calendar, but on May 8 according to the Hebrew calendar. German Chancellor Angela Merkel and President Horst Koehler sent messages of congratulation last week.

Bundestag President Lammert described today's good relationship between Germany and Israel as "like a miracle."

Lammert said that in more than six decades since surviving Jews were liberated from the Nazi concentration camps, "a friendship has developed that no one then would have dared hope for."

The Federal Republic of Germany would achieve its first 60 years next year, a year after Israel, and the two anniversaries had a "deep connection."

"Israel was established in the ashes of the Holocaust and the second German republic on the ruins of a totalitarian regime that breached human dignity in unprecedented ways," he said.

Germany had "an historically based special responsibility for the existence and security of Israel," Lammert said.

Ben-Zeev said at the same gathering, "We know who our friends are, and Germany is a very important partner." (dpa)