Germany’s Scholz says Ukraine must help mend ties after president visit debacle

BERLIN (Reuters) -Chancellor Olaf Scholz urged Ukraine on Wednesday to assist unblock an embarrassing diplomatic deadlock, after the German president was stopped from visiting Kyiv amid disquiet over his previous assist of rapprochement with Russia.

Ukraine’s ambassador to Germany has known as Scholz an “offended liver sausage” for refusing to go to the nation earlier than President Frank-Walter Steinmeier is welcomed there.

“It’s a downside for the German authorities and for the German folks that the president was requested to not come,” Scholz advised reporters following talks together with his cupboard.

“Ukraine should additionally play its half,” he mentioned, with out elaborating how.

The row has put a clumsy twist on relations at a time when Germany’s opposition to Russia’s invasion is essential to Ukraine, given its weight within the European Union and the bloc’s deliberations on sanctions towards Moscow.

Steinmeier had deliberate to go to the Ukrainian capital in April however the journey was cancelled, inflicting a scandal in Germany the place policymakers have been scrambling to reverse a long-standing “Wandel durch Handel” – change via commerce – method to coping with Russia.

Steinmeier, a fellow member of Scholz’s centre-left Social Democrats (SPD), was lengthy thought of a proponent of reconciliation with Moscow however he has since conceded that he made errors.

German media had beforehand reported that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy refused to welcome Steinmeier in Kyiv over his years-long assist for the Nord Stream 2 fuel pipeline connecting Russia to Germany, which was cancelled days earlier than Russia started its invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24.

Highlighting the federal government’s delay in sending somebody to Ukraine, Germany’s essential opposition chief, Friedrich Merz of the conservative Christian Democrats (CDU), visited the war-torn nation on Tuesday.

Scholz mentioned he was in contact together with his political rival relating to the journey, throughout which Merz toured the bombed-out city of Irpin earlier than heading to close by Kyiv for talks with Zelenskiy.

(Reporting by Rachel Extra; Modifying by Miranda Murray and Hugh Lawson)