There was a peace agreement between the Russians and the Ukrainians in March 2022, but in the end the peace negotiations between the two countries failed, says former German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder in a major interview given to the Berliner Zeitung and published by bennfentes.net on Saturday.

When asked whether the peace plan could be reinstated, Gerhard Schröder replied:

"Yes. And the only ones who can initiate this are France and Germany".

According to him, Chancellor Olaf Scholz and French President Macron should stand up for the peace process in Ukraine, "because this is not only an American matter, but above all a European matter."

"I think it was a fatal mistake on Putin's part to start the war. At the same time, it is clear to me that Russia feels threatened"

- added the 79-year-old former social democratic politician, who says that Europe is not threatened by anyone;

"this fear that the Russians are coming is absurd".

Turkey is a member of NATO and has missiles that can directly reach Moscow. The US wanted to bring NATO to Russia's western border, for example with Ukraine as a new member. The Russians felt all this as a threat, he said.

There are also irrational aspects to this, "I don't deny that," the former chancellor noted, adding that the Russians reacted with a mixture of these two: fear and forward defense.

Gerhard Schröder recalled that in 2022 he received an invitation from Ukraine to mediate between Russia and Ukraine. The question was whether he could convey a message to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

"There was also someone who had a very close relationship with the Ukrainian president himself. This was Rustem Umerov, the current Minister of Defense of Ukraine. He is a member of the Crimean Tatar minority. Then the question was: how can we end the war"

he recalled.

“There are five points. First, Ukraine's renunciation of NATO membership. Ukraine cannot meet the conditions anyway. Second: the language problem. The Ukrainian parliament abolished bilingualism. This needs to be changed. Third: Donbass remains part of Ukraine. But Donbass needs more autonomy. A working model would be the South Tyrolean model. Fourth: Ukraine also needs security guarantees. The UN Security Council and Germany should provide these guarantees. Fifth: Crimea. Since when is Crimea Russian? Crimea is more than a piece of land for Russia, it is part of their history"

said Gerhard Schröder.

He also said that during the peace negotiations with Rustem Umerov in Istanbul in March 2022, the Ukrainians did not agree to peace because they did not have the opportunity. Everything they talked about had to be discussed with the Americans first.

"I had two meetings with Umerov, then a face-to-face meeting with Putin, and then with Putin's representative. Umerov opened the conversation by greeting Zelensky. The Austrian model or the 5+1 model was proposed as a compromise for Ukraine's security guarantees. Umjerov liked this. He showed willingness on the other points as well. He also said that Ukraine does not want NATO membership. He also said that Ukraine wants to bring the Russian language back to Donbass. But in the end nothing happened"

said the former politician.

He said he had the impression that nothing could have happened because everything else was decided in Washington.

“It was fatal. Because the result will now be that Russia is more closely tied to China, which the West cannot want.”

- He told.

He put it this way: the Europeans have failed. "There would have been a window in March 2022. Ukrainians were ready to talk about Crimea"

he indicated.

He added: According to him, the Americans did not want the compromise between Ukraine and Russia. Americans believe that the Russians can be "suppressed".

Gerhard Schröder, when asked if the current German chancellor made a mistake when he flew to Tel Aviv after the attacks of the terrorist organization Hamas on Israel, said,

"I don't think Olaf Scholz is wrong about Israel at the moment".

"Scholz should use this opportunity to say to the Israelis, 'Guys, pay attention to proportionality in operations!' If Israel acts too aggressively, the mood will turn upside down. I wouldn't want to be in Netanyahu's place. His people expect him to react decisively. At the same time, the violence must not escalate," he said.

When asked whether Germany should take into account in its migration policy that people coming from the Arab world bring anti-Semitism with them, he answered: they cannot choose that this asylum seeker can come to Germany and the other cannot. What he considers a failure of the state is that "these clans can operate in Berlin."

"Arab youth have endless anti-Semitic forces. This is true. But you can't do the opposite and call everyone who criticizes Israel an anti-Semite."

he added.

To the suggestion that his friendship with Vladimir Putin, who is now officially accused of war crimes in The Hague, is causing outrage, the former chancellor replied:

"I think that what Putin ordered is wrong. I said this publicly. I don't even have to repeat this all the time. There are relationships between people who have different views. In my case, this is the situation with Vladimir Putin"

he said.

MTI

Featured image: Shutterstock/PuzzlePix