[ad_1]
German Chancellor Angela Merkel faced mounting pressure on Thursday to toughen her decisive stance on Russia after declaring that Berlin had “definitive” evidence that Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny had been poisoned with a deadly nerve gas. .
The Navalny case is the latest in what Berlin sees as a series of bitter provocations by Russian President Vladimir Putin that have damaged relations and cast doubt on future cooperation.
But German politicians and media reported that Moscow had crossed the line by using Novichok against Navalny, a poisonous substance developed by the Soviet Union near the end of the Cold War.
Merkel has faced particularly urgent calls to abandon the controversial German-Russian energy project Nord Stream 2, a billion-euro gas pipeline that is about to expire and has angered American and European partners alike.
“These diplomatic rituals are no longer enough,” the head of the German parliament’s foreign affairs commission, Norbert Reutgen, wrote on Twitter.
“After Navalny is poisoned, we need a strong European response that Putin understands: the European Union must jointly decide to stop Nord Stream 2,” said Roettgen, the candidate to be the next leader of Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union.
The country’s best-selling daily, Bild, asked Merkel to abandon the already controversial pipeline, saying that continuing to participate in it amounted to “financing” a future Novichok attack by Putin.
– ‘Strategic weapon’ –
Bild Merkel criticized his comments last week that Nord Stream 2 should be tried independently of Moscow’s actions.
“Vladimir Putin sees the gas pipeline as an important strategic weapon against Europe and a vital source to finance his war against his people,” he added.
Navalny fell ill after boarding a plane in Siberia last month when people close to him said they suspected he had consumed a cup of tea containing a toxin at the airport.
He was initially treated at a hospital in Siberia, where doctors said they had not found any toxic substances in his blood, before being transferred to Berlin on August 22.
Navalny’s poisoning comes a year after a former Chechen rebel commander was killed in broad daylight in a Berlin park, and German prosecutors believe the order was ordered by Russia.
Merkel also revealed in May that Russia had targeted her in hacking attacks, saying she had concrete evidence of “shameful” espionage attempts.
Moscow denied involvement in the series of accusations, and the Kremlin said Thursday that “there is no justification for accusing the Russian state of poisoning Navalny.”
Relations with Russia have always been a divisive issue in German politics, and the deterioration of transatlantic relations under US President Donald Trump has revived the feeling that Berlin cannot afford the deterioration of relations with Moscow. .
Wolfgang Ischinger, chairman of the Munich Security Conference, which is often a forum for expressing Russian-Western tensions, warned against a sudden breakdown of relations. “We cannot erect a wall between us and Russia,” he told the ARD public television station.
– ‘Dark clouds’ –
Foreign Minister Heiko Maas of the Social Democratic Party, a junior partner in Merkel’s government and a generally staunch advocate of maintaining close ties with Russia, said Berlin will now consult with European Union and NATO allies on the “response. appropriate “to the Navalny case.
In a speech earlier this week in Paris, Maas acknowledged that while “constructive relations” remain essential, “dark clouds” hang over relations between the European Union and Russia.
“ARD” commentator Michael Strumpel referred to Merkel’s statement on Wednesday that what was required was to “silence” Navalny and her condemnation of the incident “in the strongest terms”, representing an unprecedented tightening of his rhetoric towards Russia.
“I have not seen the chancellor as assertive as this in a foreign policy case,” Streamble said.
And he continued, “I didn’t tell him to criticize Russia in this way either.”
He said Merkel’s credibility is now at stake and called for new economic and political sanctions to be imposed on Moscow.
The European Union has imposed sanctions against entire sectors of the Russian economy since 2014, when Russia annexed Crimea.
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung said it was time to move on.
“The European response is vital,” he said, “but if the usual suspects refuse to cooperate, then Germany will have to interact bilaterally as well. We are talking about an assassination attempt at the end.”
[ad_2]
