German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas called for "new thinking" on disarmament policy on Saturday, announcing a German initiative aimed at improving control over increasingly technologically sophisticated weaponry, DW reported.

In an interview with the daily Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung, Maas said, "Our rules need to keep pace with the technological developments of new types of arms.

"I am also thinking of fully automated weapons systems that can kill entirely independent of human control," he said. Space-based weapons and missiles that can travel many times faster than the speed of sound may sound like science fiction today, but will soon become "deadly reality," he added.

Concrete details about the German initiative remain unknown.