The head of the German government, Olaf Scholzadvocated this Sunday for intensifying Diplomatic efforts to achieve peace in Ukraine “more quickly”confronted since February 2022 with the Russian invasion.
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These statements come at a time when Scholz is under increasing internal pressure due to public discontent with the prolongation of the conflict..
Germany is the second largest donor of aid to Ukraineafter the United States, and the Scholz government has reiterated that it will maintain its support for kyiv “as long as necessary.”
“I think it is now time to talk about how we can get out of this war situation and achieve peace more quickly,” Chancellor Scholz told public broadcaster ZDF in an interview, saying Russia should attend a future peace summit after being banned from the first one.
“There will be another peace conference,” the foreign minister said, noting that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky agrees that Russia should participate.
The far-right AfD and far-left BSW parties, which advocate an end to arms deliveries to Ukraine, made gains in regional elections last week, in which Scholz’s coalition was undermined.
What the Kremlin said to Olaf Scholz’s proposal for a peace conference
The Kremlin said on Monday that it does not reject the proposal of German Chancellor Olaf Scholzthat Russia participate in a future peace conference for Ukraine, but still believes that a settlement by the United States is lacking.
“We are not rejecting any plan in advance, but we need to understand what it is about,” presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov said at a telephone press conference.
Peskov insisted that he had learned about the German initiative from the press, but said he was unaware of the details.
At the peace conference in Switzerland, attended by hundreds of countries and international organisations, Russia was not among the nations represented.
“As for settling the conflict in Ukraine through peaceful means, there is no concrete way forward so far,” Peskov added.
He stressed that European countries have made different statements on the matter, but added that the United States has not yet submitted its own proposal.
“We have not seen any statements in this regard, in fact, from the country that is leading this whole process, that is leading the Collective West,” he lamented.
Russian President Vladimir Putin says the Kremlin’s priority now is to expel Ukrainian troops from the territory of the Russian border region of Kursk, which they entered on August 6.
In June, Putin proposed that kyiv withdraw its troops from the four regions annexed by Moscow (Donetsk, Lugansk, Kherson and Zaporizhia) and abandon its plans to join NATO, in exchange for an immediate ceasefire and the start of peace negotiations.
German Chancellor Criticized
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who said in an interview on Sunday that the time has come for a peace conference in which Russia participatescame under fire on Monday from the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), the main opposition party.
Roderich Kiesewetter, a CDU member of parliament specialising in international affairs, said in a statement reported on Monday by the Berlin daily ‘Berliner Zeitung’ that what the chancellor and his party, the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), want is to “subtly push Ukraine towards a fake peace determined by Russia.”
Kiesewetter, who believes that Scholz wants a “sham negotiation” with Russia, pointed out that this vision of the SPD and the chancellor is part of Berlin’s desire to reduce its support to Ukraine by half next year – 4 billion euros – compared to the aid sent to kyiv this year, some 7.48 billion euros.
On Sunday, in an interview with public television ‘ARD’, Scholz said he agreed with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, that another peace conference must be held, like the one organised in Switzerland last June at the initiative of kyiv, but at which Russia must also be present.
“There must be another peace conference in any case and the Ukrainian president and I agree that Russia must also be there,” Scholz said, noting that he and Zelensky had agreed on a Russian presence at a peace conference at their meeting in Frankfurt, western Germany, on Friday.
At the peace conference in Switzerland, attended by hundreds of countries and international organisations, Russia was not among the nations represented.
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