FRANKFURT (Reuters) – German foreign minister Annalena Baerbock said on Thursday that Ukraine and Europe need to be involved in peace talks about Ukraine, after the U.S. president and the Russian president discussed the conflict.
“We can’t have talks without involving Ukraine. Peace in Europe is at stake, that’s why we Europeans need to be brought in,” Baerbock said in an interview with Deutschlandfunk radio.
U.S. President Donald Trump discussed the war in Ukraine on Wednesday in phone calls with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy.
The German foreign minister said she had not been informed of the calls in advance.
“This is the way the Trump administration operates. That is why constant mutual communication is needed with the various players. That, too, is different from other times. This is not how others do foreign policy, but this is now the reality,” said Baerbock, a member of the Greens party.
The co-leader of German Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s Social Democrats on Thursday told Reuters that Europe and Germany needed to assume more responsibility.
“What is needed now is a swift and firm signal and also an offer extended to the United States,” said party co-leader Lars Klingbeil.
Trump has ordered top U.S. officials to begin talks on ending the war, but has not spelled out exactly how he would accomplish this.
(Reporting by Ludwig Burger and Andreas Rinke, editing by Rachel More and Miranda Murray)
