Foreign
THE controversial Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline, linking Germany directly with Russia and bypassing Poland, should not be allowed to overshadow German-Polish relations.
German Foreign Minister, Heiko Maas, said this in remarks published on Thursday.
“If one considers the close bilateral relations between Germany and Poland, it will not be right to reduce our cooperation within the European Union and NATO exclusively to Nord Stream 2,’’ Maas said.
He said this to the Warsaw-based Rzeczpospolita daily newspaper ahead of his visit to Poland.
“To do so would be to ignore the close and diverse relations between the two countries.’’
Maas was to meet his Polish counterpart, Zbigniew Rau, in Warsaw on Thursday.
For his part, Rau wrote in Germany’s Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung daily that Russian President Vladimir Putin was setting an “imperial trap” for Germany with the pipeline.
He warned of security deficit being created on NATO’s eastern flank with the pending completion of the pipeline.
This has drawn strident opposition from Ukraine and the U.S., as well as Poland, although the U.S. has recently moderated its criticism.
NAN
– July 01, 2021 @ 13:20 GMT|
Tags: Don’t reduce German-Polish relations to gas pipeline – German minister
