BERLIN: A German journalist handed over by Syria to the Russian envoy in Damascus Tuesday has left the strife-torn country and is now at the German embassy in Lebanon, the foreign ministry said.

German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle is "relieved" that Billy Six, who works for the Junge Freiheit weekly and went missing in Syria late December, is now in the "safe care" of the embassy in Beirut, a ministry spokesman said.

"The government has intensively endeavoured to clarify his whereabouts and enable his return," the spokesman said in a statement.

Westerwelle also thanked the Russian government and his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov "for their support" in enabling Six to leave Syria, the statement added.

A spokesman for Junge Freiheit said Six had been reporting from Syria since August 2012 and that shortly after Christmas it was informed he had been taken captive by Syrian troops.