Berlin, Oct 16
Ending months of no contact, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz on Wednesday signalled willingness to talk to Russian President Vladimir Putin for a peaceful end to the conflict in Ukraine.
Scholz expressed his openness to talk to the Russian leader, with whom he had last had a conversation in December 2022, as he called for another peace summit on Ukraine, where Russia would also be present, RT reported. Russia was not invited to the peace summit held in Switzerland in June, and it ended inconclusively with other key nations not participating or signing the final communique.
"Therefore, it is also true that when we are asked whether we will also talk to the Russian President, we answer - yes, we will," the Chancellor said while addressing the German Parliament.
However, he underlined that the potential negotiations with Moscow, however, would not happen "over the heads of Ukraine and never without deliberation with our closest partners".
The German leader's statement came days after his Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said that Putin is not willing to speak with Scholz about brokering peace in Ukraine.
However, Russia maintained that it had not received any proposal from Berlin for a phone call between Scholz and Putin.
"No. There were no proposals. We have said repeatedly that Putin remains open to contact," Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told Russian media.
He had also dismissed German media reports that Scholz wanted to speak with Putin by phone ahead of the November G20 meeting in Brazil.
Peskov had maintained that the two leaders had "no common issues" to discuss, and described the ties between the two countries as being "reduced to virtually zero".