Foreign
GERMAN Chancellor Olaf Scholz said on Thursday that he would welcome it if former chancellor Gerhard Schröder acted as an intermediary with Russia, regarding a dispute over reduced gas deliveries.
It would be commendable if Schröder were to talk to Moscow about a repaired turbine currently located in western Germany.
This had been cited by Russian authorities as the reason for its decision to throttle gas flows through the Nord Stream 1 pipeline.
Scholz was speaking at his first summer news conference since entering office last year.
Schröder, who was in office from 1998 and 2005, had been criticised for years for his involvement with Russian state-owned companies and was considered a close personal friend of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The pressure on Schröder to distance himself from Putin increased after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February.
In May, Schröder finally announced that he would leave the supervisory board of the Russian energy giant Rosneft.
He also turned down a nomination for a supervisory board position at Gazprom.
But in a recent interview with private broadcaster RTL/ntv, Schröder once again refused to distance himself from Putin.
He also advocated putting the controversial Nord Stream 2 Baltic Sea pipeline, which was put on hold in light of the Russian invasion, into operation. (dpa/NAN)
KN
Tags: Olaf Scholz Putin
