German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier in a letter published on Tuesday expressed his appreciation for former Soviet Union leader Mikhail Gorbachev's role in reuniting Germany. In the letter released by his office Tuesday, Steinmeier wrote that Germany's peaceful reunification and the end of Europe's division "would not have been possible without the courageous and humane decisions that you personally made at that time." "Germany is forever indebted to you and deeply grateful," the president wrote. In retrospect, not all the hopes of those days have been fulfilled, Steinmeier wrote, referring to the current state of European-Russian relations ahead of the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall on Nov. 9. "What bothers me most is the state of German-Russian and European-Russian relations. It remains a matter of duty and commitment not to accept the growing alienation of recent years and to keep an eye on the goal of a common future in peace and cooperation," wrote Steinmeier. On Nov. 9, 1989, the Berlin Wall fell and the former Soviet Union announced that it would not interfere with the issue, paving the way for the reunification of the two Germanies on Oct. 3, 1990.