Blinken meets Merkel on first visit to Germany in bid to reset ties

Berlin (dpa) – On his first visit to Germany, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken met Chancellor Angela Merkel on Wednesday, as part of a push by the new White House administration to improve relations with Europe’s strongest economic ally.

Blinken used the meeting with Merkel, as well as an earlier one with Foreign Minister Heiko Maas, to reiterate warnings that Russia could use energy as a lever of power against Ukraine in the dispute about the planned Nord Stream 2 German-Russian gas pipeline.

“We continue to to believe that the pipeline is ultimately a Russian geopolitical project that threatens European energy security and potentially undermines the security of Ukraine and other countries in the region,” Blinken said after his meeting with Maas.

Maas had said that the aim was to reach results “that can also be supported in Washington.” There are a number of possibilities and approaches that are being discussed, he added.

The planned visit of Merkel to the United States in July would be a suitable time to achieve results, Maas said.

Blinken encouraged Germany to take concrete steps to reduce the risks the pipeline poses to Ukraine and European energy security, according to a State Department spokesman following the Merkel meeting.

The two also discussed the importance of coordinated trans-Atlantic relations to dealing with challenges such as China and Russia, as well as recovery from the coronavirus, Afghanistan and climate change, said spokesman Ned Price in a statement on Wednesday.

In addition to meeting Merkel and Maas, Blinken also took part in a conference on the Libyan conflict taking place in Berlin.

Blinken is in Berlin as part of an initiative by US President Joe Biden to reset relations between the US and Germany after they fell to a new low under ex-president Donald Trump.

He stressed before meeting Merkel that the US “has no better partner, no better friend in the world than Germany.”

For years, the US has been opposed to the construction of the Baltic Sea pipeline, which is supposed to pump gas from Russia to Germany bypassing Ukraine.

Nevertheless, in May, the new Biden administration partially gave up years of US opposition to the project and waived sanctions against the operating company – also out of consideration for relations with Germany.

Since then, talks have been under way between Germany and the US on how to proceed. As Blinken made clear again in his conversation with Maas, the two pipes were already more than 90 per cent finished by the time the Biden administration came to office.

On Thursday, Maas and Blinken plan to sign an agreement at the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe on closer cooperation between their two countries on Holocaust remembrance.

German Economics Minister Peter Altmaier departed for a trip to Washington on Wednesday.

Merkel is planning her trip to the US for July 15.

She met Biden the weekend before last for a first personal conversation on the fringes of the G20 summit in Britain.