Former Chancellor Angela Merkel in Germany.
The words of Christoph Heusgen, who served as a consultant to Merkel for years, who left her job in December last year after serving as prime minister for 16 years without interruption, fell like a bomb on the country’s agenda.
Making a statement to WELT am Sonntag newspaper, Munich Security Conference President Heusgen said that some of the decisions taken during his time as a consultant between 2005-2017 were wrong.
The former adviser, who admitted that mistakes were made in Russia’s policy, used the following statements;
‘Although natural gas did not flow through the pipeline, which was completed as a result of the Nord Stream 2 project signed during the time of Angela Merkel, we later saw that this was a mistake.’
Heusgen said that after the accident at the nuclear power plant in Fukushima on March 11, 2011, the Merkel government decided to close the nuclear power plants in the country gradually and that they signed the ‘North Stream 2’ natural gas pipeline project with Moscow to close this gap, and continued as follows;
‘Russian natural gas was the fastest and cheapest solution. Both SPD and economic institutions and organizations gave full support to this project. However, we realized later that signing this project was a mistake.’
United Nations (UN) in 2017-2021 Germany Heusgen, who served as its Permanent Representative and chaired the Munich Security Conference last year, also asked Germany to send Leopard tanks to Ukraine.
Following the 2005 federal elections, Merkel was appointed Chancellor of Germany, replacing Gerhard Schröder. Merkel held this post until 2021.
‘PUTIN’ CONFESSION FROM MERKEL
Speaking to the German broadcaster Der Spiegel in the past few days, the former Chancellor made statements such as confession.
Merkel, who stated that she was trying to organize meetings in the summer of 2021 with the participation of Russian leader Putin and French President Macron, said, “I have struggled a lot with the Ukraine issue. But it was no surprise. The Minsk Agreement has been eroded. In the summer of 2021, I met with Presidents Biden and Putin. Together with Macron, I wanted an independent European discussion format with Putin in the European Council. Some people objected to this. I didn’t have the strength to provide that and influence him. After all, everyone knew that I would go in the fall,’ he said.
Merkel defended the policy she followed against Russia while she was in office before the invasion of Ukraine and said that she was unable to stop Putin.
Merkel said, “Only power is important to Putin,” and that Putin was accompanied by Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in their last meeting. The former chancellor had underlined that they had bilateral meetings each time before.
PUTIN FEARED WITH THE DOG
The Putin-Merkel relationship started out quite traumatic. Russia President Putin had learned that Merkel was not good with dogs.
Merkel was bitten by a dog 10 years ago. Putin was also aware of this weakness and presented Merkel with a furry dog toy on her first visit to Moscow as prime minister.
A year later, Putin took things even further. MerkelHe had a black Labrador Cone in his room during his visit to Sochi. The German delegation reacted to this situation, which worried Merkel.
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