New Delhi, Sep 3 (UNI) German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul today called on PM Narendra Modi and voiced appreciation for India’s call for a ceasefire in Ukraine.
The German FM, in a post on X, said that India‘s voice carries weight in the world and has influence when it comes to working for peace in Ukraine.
“Had great talks with @NarendraModi today. Our countries have taken good steps to expand our strategic partnership across the board, particularly in security & defence, economy & trade as well as skilled labour. We also greatly appreciate India‘s call for a ceasefire in Ukraine.”
On his talks with EAM S Jaishankar, he said that India and Germany are natural partners, “we play in the same team & want to strengthen our partnership across the board”.
“We aim to boost our bilateral trade & our cooperation. Be it skilled workers or technology and space, our countries will always win when we work more closely together.
“As democracies we share the commitment to the international rules-based order which we want to uphold. India‘s voice carries weight in the world and has influence also when it comes to working for peace in Ukraine.”
Earlier, during a presser with EAM Jaishankar after their bilateral talks here, the German FM had voiced appreciation of Prime Minister Narendra Modi urging for a speedy peace agreement in Ukraine during his bilateral talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Tianjin earlier this week.
“The fact that PM Modi when he met with President Putin of Russia pointed to a speedy peace agreement in Ukraine is important to us. We are working with our European friends to see that peace returns soon,” German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul said.
“We are working with our European partners in confronting Russia as international law is being violated. It is a challenge, to reach a perfect peace agreement on such matters,” he added.
Wadephul said that Germany realises there is a clear political stance of India to contribute to bringing about the process of peace in Ukraine. “Here too we see eye to eye, and I agree the talk has been very fruitful,” he added.
“In this conflict, we are pursuing a policy that we have to be objective that Russia and Ukraine sit for negotiations. We have seen that Russia is not willing to sit for negotiations, while Ukraine has expressed its willingness to do so. Our only demand is that weapons fall silent, and that is a reasonable condition. And we want Putin to sit at the negotiating table (with Zelenskyy),” he added.
Asked about the additional US tariffs on India that US President Donald Trump said was being slapped for New Delhi’s purchase of Russian oil and whether Germany concurred with it, the German FM sidestepped the issue.
He spoke instead about the European sanctions on Russia. “We have used sanctions on Russia, to ensure that Russia is unable to fund its war. We want to remove the financial basis that Russia uses to fund the war,” he said, adding, “And at same time we don’t want to affect countries that need energy”, in reference to India and its purchase of Russian oil.
