Despite pressure, Merkel wants to separate pipeline and Navalny poisoning
Loading player...
Berlin — German Chancellor Angela Merkel is waiting for Russia’s response to the poisoning of opposition leader Alexei Navalny before deciding how to react, as she faces pressure to drop support for a controversial gas pipeline.
“Much will depend on whatever reaction we have from the Russian side,” Merkel said in Berlin on Thursday. “I acknowledge what has been said, but I want to say that yesterday I made clear what we’re doing now and in the coming days,” she said, without repeating her position that the Nord Stream pipeline and the Navalny case should be handled separately.
Norbert Röttgen, head of the German parliament’s foreign affairs committee and a candidate to head Merkel’s Christian Democratic Party, said the Nord Stream 2 pipeline needs to be stopped because completing it would reward rather than punish Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“After the poisoning of Navalny we need a strong European answer, which Putin understands: the EU should jointly decide to stop Nord Stream 2,” he said on Twitter. “Diplomatic rituals are no longer enough.”
In an editorial, Bild — Germany’s biggest-selling daily newspaper — called on Merkel to “stop the Putin pipeline”, saying failure to act would mean financing the next Kremlin attack.
Merkel said on Wednesday that tests showed “unequivocally” that Navalny was poisoned by a military-grade Novichok nerve agent and called on the Russian government to provide answers. The substance was used in the March 2018 attempted murder of former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter on British soil, prompting an expulsion of 150 Russian diplomats.
Merkel plans to consult with EU and Nato allies in the coming days to formulate a response.
Russian officials rejected the German allegations, asserting that doctors had found no evidence that Navalny was poisoned before he left for Germany. “In the Kremlin and at the level of our medics and specialists, we have been explaining this situation from the start,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said. “One would have to be deaf not to hear it.”
He said there’s “no basis” to accuse the Russian state, adding that Moscow is still waiting for an explanation from Berlin on its conclusion that Navalny was poisoned. He said there’s no reason for new sanctions and dismissed calls to stop Nord Stream 2 as “emotional statements not based on concrete facts”.
The situation with Navalny “is a planned action against Russia”, Vyacheslav Volodin, the speaker of ...
“Much will depend on whatever reaction we have from the Russian side,” Merkel said in Berlin on Thursday. “I acknowledge what has been said, but I want to say that yesterday I made clear what we’re doing now and in the coming days,” she said, without repeating her position that the Nord Stream pipeline and the Navalny case should be handled separately.
Norbert Röttgen, head of the German parliament’s foreign affairs committee and a candidate to head Merkel’s Christian Democratic Party, said the Nord Stream 2 pipeline needs to be stopped because completing it would reward rather than punish Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“After the poisoning of Navalny we need a strong European answer, which Putin understands: the EU should jointly decide to stop Nord Stream 2,” he said on Twitter. “Diplomatic rituals are no longer enough.”
In an editorial, Bild — Germany’s biggest-selling daily newspaper — called on Merkel to “stop the Putin pipeline”, saying failure to act would mean financing the next Kremlin attack.
Merkel said on Wednesday that tests showed “unequivocally” that Navalny was poisoned by a military-grade Novichok nerve agent and called on the Russian government to provide answers. The substance was used in the March 2018 attempted murder of former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter on British soil, prompting an expulsion of 150 Russian diplomats.
Merkel plans to consult with EU and Nato allies in the coming days to formulate a response.
Russian officials rejected the German allegations, asserting that doctors had found no evidence that Navalny was poisoned before he left for Germany. “In the Kremlin and at the level of our medics and specialists, we have been explaining this situation from the start,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said. “One would have to be deaf not to hear it.”
He said there’s “no basis” to accuse the Russian state, adding that Moscow is still waiting for an explanation from Berlin on its conclusion that Navalny was poisoned. He said there’s no reason for new sanctions and dismissed calls to stop Nord Stream 2 as “emotional statements not based on concrete facts”.
The situation with Navalny “is a planned action against Russia”, Vyacheslav Volodin, the speaker of ...