Friday 10th December 2021
Affirms close relationship
Scholz consults with Biden about the conflict in Ukraine
New Chancellor Scholz has a lot to do in his first days in office. While he is personally present in France and the EU in Brussels, there is contact to the USA by telephone. Among other things, he exchanges views with US President Biden on the conflict in Ukraine.
Chancellor Olaf Scholz discussed the conflict in Ukraine with US President Joe Biden on Friday. “I look forward to working closely on all global challenges, including transatlantic efforts to address Russia’s destabilizing military deployment along the border with Ukraine,” Biden wrote on Twitter after the conversation. According to the White House, other topics of the conversation were the corona pandemic and climate change.
According to the spokesman for the federal government, Steffen Hebestreit, Biden and Scholz emphasized the close relations between Germany and the USA in the telephone conversation and confirmed their will to “further consolidate and deepen them”. Biden also congratulated Scholz on taking office.
The new Chancellor and Biden had already taken part in a virtual “Summit for Democracy” on Thursday. This was hosted by the USA and more than 100 governments took part.
Biden had exchanged views on the Ukraine conflict with Russian President Vladimir Putin at a video summit on Tuesday. Russia has gathered tens of thousands of soldiers on the border with its neighboring country, which is fueling fears in the West that the Russian army could invade Ukraine. Moscow rejects this and accuses Ukraine of provocations. In the event of an invasion, Biden threatened Putin with harsh economic sanctions.
In eastern Ukraine, pro-Russian militias and the Ukrainian army have been fighting each other since 2014 after Moscow annexed the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea. In the conflict, Russia supports the separatists who have proclaimed so-called People’s Republics in Luhansk and Donetsk. More than 13,000 people have already been killed in the fighting.