Photo: DR
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz has come out strongly against a U.S. idea to restore Russia to the Group of Eight as part of Washington’s proposed “peace plan” for Ukraine, Deutsche Welle reported.
Merz said that none of the G7 members, apart from the United States, support Russia’s return and that there are no conditions for such a move. “At present I do not see any willingness among the six current G7 members who are not the United States to readmit Russia,” he told a news conference on Sunday, 23 November, following the G20 summit in Johannesburg.
He added that a return to the G8 format would require consensus among all members.
French President Emmanuel Macron expressed a similar view earlier, saying there were no grounds for readmitting Russia.
Russia was expelled from the G8 in June 2014 after its annexation of Crimea. The summit scheduled to take place in Sochi was cancelled when the other seven leaders refused to attend.
The current G7 includes the United States, Germany, France, the United Kingdom, Italy, Canada and Japan, a group regarded as a club of the world’s most advanced economies.
