'I did all I could to prevent Ukraine conflict': Merkel
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Former German Chancellor Angela Merkel defends her efforts to broker the 2014-2015 ceasefire accords, stating they were reached in good faith.
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Former German Chancellor Angela Merkel speaks during a talk at the Berliner Ensemble theatre in Germany June 7, 2022. (Reuters)
Former German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who, earlier in December, confessed that the Minsk agreements were only "meant to give Ukraine time" claimed that she did all she could to prevent the war in Ukraine.
Merkel defended her efforts to broker the 2014-2015 ceasefire accords, stating they were agreed in good faith.
The former German Chancellor's remarks were made during an interview with Die Zeit’s Chief Editor Giovanni di Lorenzo on Saturday.
Elsewhere in her remarks, Merkel said she’d “tried with what was at my disposal to prevent” the current Ukraine conflict. Just because these efforts eventually failed does not mean they were misguided, the ex-Chancellor insisted, adding that “diplomacy is a necessity.”
She endorsed the Minsk peace process, which reportedly aimed to put an end to hostilities and advance negotiations between Kiev and the Donbass.
Merkel deplored the fact that, at the time, few European nations other than Germany and France were interested in those diplomatic endeavors.
Last year, the ex-Chancellor noted, in an interview for the Italian Corriere della Sera, that she is oblivious about how the war in Ukraine will come to an end, arguing that "it will eventually end in negotiations," adding that "wars normally end at the negotiating table."
Merkel then stated, "I don’t have anything else to add," before going on to further explain, in detail, her government's policy toward Russia and Ukraine.
Merkel argued that the logic of her decision-making process, at the time, "still seems rational" to her today and noted that "it was all about preventing a war, similar to the conflict that is unfolding now. We failed, but it does not mean that it was wrong to try."
She also reaffirmed her statements from her Die Zeit confessions and said that the "Minsk Accords of 2014 were an attempt to give Ukraine time. Ukraine used this period to become stronger, as seen today" and insisted that "the country of 2014/15 is not the country of today. And I doubt NATO could have done much to help Ukraine, as it does today."
It is worth noting that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky admitted in February that he had previously told German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron that the Minsk agreements were "impossible" and he did not plan on implementing them.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said weeks later that Russia was hoping for peace agreements back when it signed the Minsk Agreements in 2014, but it was fooled.
"We all endured, endured, endured and hoped for some kind of peace agreement, but now it turns out that we were simply fooled," Putin told reporters.
Read more: Putin: The world is changing for the better
