Politicians from the SPD and the Greens reacted positively to the meeting between Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul (CDU) and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. "For months we have been urging that, in addition to humanitarian, financial and military support for Ukraine, increased diplomatic efforts must be made to end the war," said Adis Ahmetović, foreign policy spokesman for the SPD parliamentary group, to the "Rheinische Post". The meeting on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York was all the more important.
“This is an important first step that we as coalition partners are supporting constructively,” added Ahmetović. "Further advances in this direction must follow, also in consultation with our close partners France and Great Britain in the E3 format."
The Vice President of the Bundestag, Omid Nouripour (Greens), also believes it was “right that Wadephul met with Lavrov.” Even if no approach was observed at the meeting.
"Negotiations with this Kremlin are only successful if Putin has the will for peace," said Nouripour. "He is currently completely missing this." Thanks to Wadephul's diplomatic advance, "every dreamer can now see that Russia has nothing in mind other than mocking, defaming and distorting."
Severely damaged bilateral relationship
The foreign ministers of Germany and Russia met bilaterally on Saturday for the first time since the start of the Ukraine war. The exchange took place on the sidelines of the UN general debate in New York; it only lasted around 20 minutes.
During the conversation on Saturday, Wadephul asked the Russian Foreign Minister to "leave the dangerous path of escalation against Germany, Europe and NATO," sources in the German delegation said. Incidents such as the attempted attack at Leipzig Airport at the beginning of August would "further affect the bilateral relationship with Germany, which Russia has already seriously damaged," it said.
According to delegation circles, Wadephul emphasized that the possibility of returning to a more constructive relationship exists “at any time.” However, this presupposes the Russian leadership's serious willingness to end the war of aggression against Ukraine. Such a willingness is “not yet apparent.”
Lavrov said he had not heard anything that did not already correspond to Berlin's daily public statements. He told the German Foreign Minister: "You could have simply called me and said 'Read my statement'."
“You have to negotiate with opponents”
Germany's Foreign Minister himself commented on the conversation on the ARD "Tagesthemen", among others. "You don't have to negotiate with friends, you have to negotiate with opponents," he said there. Therefore, the conversation with Lavrov made sense, even if it did not produce a positive result. "But to everyone who keeps saying that Germany has to negotiate, that Germany has to talk to Russia, I now reply: We will."
Wadephul told ZDF that he had been asked by numerous colleagues to be open to talks with Russia. The colleagues advised “that at some point we have to talk to each other directly again.” In addition, he did not want the Europeans to leave the Americans with complete exchanges with Russia. Of course, the principle still applies that one cannot talk about Ukraine without talking about Ukraine.
According to Lavrov, Germany requested the meeting at the “last minute.” It wasn't until Friday that someone contacted him.
However, another version was heard on the sidelines of the UN summit. Accordingly, Lavrov had signaled to the German side that he was willing to talk about third countries. The German side came back to this and Wadephul agreed to a meeting for the first time.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andriy Sybiha commented on the meeting on Platform
Germany is one of the most important supporters of Ukraine, which has been defending itself against the Russian war of aggression for more than four and a half years and receives money and weapons from its Western allies. After the USA reduced its support under US President Donald Trump, the role of Europe, especially Germany, has become more important.
