Merz: Germany’s chancellor will eventually have to talk to Putin

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said he would not shy away from speaking with Vladimir Putin if the Russian leader attends the G20 summit in Miami at Donald Trump’s invitation. He stressed that such a meeting would require careful preparation.

“Germany’s chancellor will eventually have to talk to Putin too,” Friedrich Merz said in Hagen on Friday evening. He was speaking at an open meeting with readers organized by the newspaper Westfalenpost to mark its 80th anniversary near Sauerland, the chancellor’s home region.

Merz said the host country always has the right to invite additional heads of state to a G20 summit and that, as far as he knew, Trump had invited Putin. “If he is there, I will not shy away from the opportunity to talk to him,” the chancellor said.

In this passage, Merz repeated that Trump had invited Putin to the G20 and promised not to avoid speaking with him. According to Berliner Morgenpost, the chancellor added that such a meeting would require thorough preparation and that he would not want a repeat of the conversation Germany’s Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul held with Sergei Lavrov in New York four weeks ago. Merz said the media had reported on that conversation “with gloating and mockery” while it was still taking place.

The summit in Miami

The G20 summit will take place in Miami in mid-December. Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Pankin previously said that the composition of the Russian delegation would be determined at the last moment. On November 3, Merz said that if Ukraine were discussed at the summit, Vladimir Zelensky should also be at the table.

At the same meeting, the chancellor spoke about a recent phone call with Trump. “We speak openly and reasonably, for the most part,” he remarked, prompting laughter in the room. According to Merz, Trump said that after the Democrats’ triumph in the midterm elections, he would have to use his veto power more often. “He is still full of energy. In politics, you have to talk to people like that too,” the chancellor said.

Photo and video: Westfalenpost / FUNKE

Merz: Germany’s chancellor will eventually have to talk to Putin