For the first time in three and a half months, the Federal Chancellor is on the phone with the Russian President. Scholz’ conclusion is clear. UN Secretary-General Guterres also made a statement.
Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) sees no change in his attitude towards the war against Ukraine from Russian President Vladimir Putin. “Unfortunately, I can’t tell you that the realization has grown there that it was a mistake to start this war,” Scholz said on Wednesday in Berlin, referring to his 90-minute phone call with Putin. “There was also no indication that new attitudes were emerging there.”
Scholz emphasized that it was still right to talk to each other and to explain your own view of things to Putin. “Because I am firmly convinced that Russia must withdraw, must withdraw its troops, so that peace has a chance in the region. And every day it becomes clear to me that this is the only perspective.”
Scholz called Putin for the first time in three and a half months on Tuesday. He insisted that a diplomatic solution and a complete withdrawal of Russian troops had to be reached as soon as possible.
UN: Chance of Ukraine talks “minimal”
Following talks with Putin, UN Secretary-General António Guterres also has no hopes for peace talks between Moscow and Kyiv in the near future. “It would be naïve to think that we are close to the possibility of a peace agreement,” Guterres said in New York. Although the United Nations is ready to work on a diplomatic solution in every respect, the chances of this are currently “minimal”. Guterres was a few minutes late for the press conference at the UN headquarters in Manhattan because he had previously spoken to the Russian president on the phone.
The general debate at the UN General Assembly will begin next week at the United Nations in New York. Putin will not attend, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov will represent Russia. A speech by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is planned for Ukraine – it is still unclear whether this will take place in person or virtually.
“The General Assembly meets at a time of great peril. The geostrategic divides are the greatest since at least the Cold War,” Guterres said. The United Nations, together with Turkey, had already successfully negotiated between Russia and Ukraine in the Ukraine war – especially on the deal to export millions of tons of grain from Ukraine across the Black Sea.
Is the grain deal bursting?
The Kremlin said on the phone call that both sides agreed that Ukrainian grain should be delivered primarily to the poorer countries of Africa, Latin America and the Middle East. Russia has criticized the fact that a large part of the exports are said to end up in Europe. A second point of criticism from Moscow is that there are still barriers to Russian exports of grain and fertilizers. Guterres said they were working on dismantling them.
The UN wants to extend the grain deal concluded at the end of July to four months. Simultaneously with the agreement, an agreement was signed with Russia on facilitating grain and fertilizer exports. The two agreements are formally independent, but are seen as complementary. Last week, Russian President Vladimir Putin threatened to scrap the agreement again, also in view of the restricted Russian exports.
Guterres left open Wednesday whether Putin renewed his threat over the phone. However, the Secretary-General stressed: “With fertilizers, we risk a market crisis. We have news from different parts of the world where the acreage is much smaller than in the previous cycle”. This means there is a risk that there could be a serious food shortage in 2023. There is already a “real danger of multiple famines” in several countries around the world.
Source: Stern
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