Foreign
HIGH-ranking government representatives of the U.S. and the German governments have met in the dispute over the German-Russian gas pipeline Nord Stream two.
U.S. President Joe Biden’s National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan met German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s foreign policy advisor Jan Hecker on Wednesday, the National Security Council in Washington announced on Wednesday.
Their talks also focused on U.S. concerns about the impact of the pipeline on Ukraine and European energy security.
Other topics included the upcoming summits of the G7 and NATO countries, the fight against the Coronavirus pandemic, and cybersecurity.
The German Chancellor’s Office did not want to comment on possible results of the meeting when asked on Thursday.
A spokesperson merely referred to the statement made the day before by deputy government spokesperson Martina Fietz, showing that such meetings were part of the normality of US-German cooperation.
In May, the U.S. government had deliberately refrained from imposing sanctions on the company operating the pipeline.
In a report from the State Department to the U.S. Congress, it was stated that not imposing sanctions on Nord Stream 2 AG in Zug, Switzerland, its German managing director Matthias Warning and four other employees were in the national interest.
The justification given was that such sanctions would have negatively affected U.S. relations with Germany, the EU, and other European allies and partners.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, however, had stressed that the U.S. remained strictly opposed to Nord Stream two. (dpa/NAN)
– June 03, 2021 @ 12:25 GMT
Tags: Germany U.S. representatives discuss Nord Stream 2 pipeline
