Germany’s Maas condemns Trump’s threat of force against protesters

Berlin (dpa) – German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas has condemned US President Donald Trump’s threat of military force against protesters.

“Instead of pouring oil into the fire, we must seek reconciliation. Instead of allowing ourselves to be divided into different camps, we should seek to stand together against radical extremists,” Maas told German news magazine Der Spiegel on Wednesday.

Threatening violence would only lead to more violence, Maas asserted. “People who consider themselves democrats must never escalate, not even with words,” he said.

Trump had on Monday threatened to use the armed forces to quell violence amid the ongoing unrest over the killing of a black man by police.

Earlier Tuesday, Maas expressed support for the ongoing protests in the United States over the man’s death in police custody and the wider issue of systemic racism in the country.

At a meeting with his Ukrainian counterpart, Dmytro Kuleba, Maas said George Floyd had been killed in a “gruesome and shocking way” and that the protests were “understandable and more than legitimate.”

He avoided direct criticism of the US government’s response to the protests and the police crackdown on participants, saying only that every act of violence should be investigated and that journalists should be allowed to work independently.

Trump has threatened to deploy the military if governors are unable to stop the violence that has gripped many US states.

A series of protests in solidarity with African Americans took place across Germany over the weekend, with the largest held in Berlin and Munich.