MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 12th January, 2023) German Chancellor Olaf Scholz's Social Democratic Party is drumming up support for a negotiated end to the Ukrainian conflict, according to an internal paper obtained by a media outlet.
The position paper was put to debate on Wednesday at a closed-door meeting of the party's parliamentary faction, the ZDF broadcaster reported, quoting excerpts from the 10-page document.
"Even though there isn't obviously any more reason to trust the Russian government, diplomatic discussions must remain possible," the paper read.
The party, which is the senior partner in the three-way coalition ruling Germany, argued that "wars are not usually decided on the battlefield." The authors pointed to small steps forward in talks with Russia, including last year's prisoner swaps and the Black Sea grain export deal.
Scholz's fellow Social Democrats reaffirmed in the paper that they remained firmly on Ukraine's side and would never try to negotiate with Russia over its head. They also said they would continue pressing for the withdrawal of Russian troops and "a fair peace pact."
Russia began a military operation in Ukraine on February 24 in response to calls for help from the breakaway republics of Donetsk and Luhansk. Russian and Ukrainian delegations have engaged in several rounds of peace talks since then, but the negotiations ultimately reached an impasse. In November 2022, the Russian Foreign Ministry said that Kiev was set on escalation, not peace talks. In December, the Kremlin expressed agreement with US statements that the resolution of the situation must be based on a fair and long-term peace, but at the same time, Moscow said it saw no prospects yet for negotiations on the settlement.
