{"id":58219,"date":"2020-01-11T13:26:57","date_gmt":"2020-01-11T05:26:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.namnewsnetwork.org\/?p=58219"},"modified":"2020-01-11T13:26:59","modified_gmt":"2020-01-11T05:26:59","slug":"libya-and-iran-top-agenda-in-merkel-putin-meeting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/?p=58219","title":{"rendered":"Libya and Iran top agenda in Merkel-Putin meeting"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"\/<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

MOSCOW\/BERLIN, Jan 11 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Confrontation between Washington and Tehran over the US killing of a top general and turmoil in Libya are set to dominate talks in Moscow on Saturday between the leaders of Russia and Germany.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Russia\u2019s Vladimir Putin will hold talks with German Chancellor Angela
Merkel in Moscow on Saturday afternoon \u2014 her first visit since May 2018 when the two leaders met at Sochi on the Black Sea.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Putin visited Syria and Turkey this week and is keen to stress his role as
a regional powerbroker.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas, who will attend the talks, said a \u201ckey
reason\u201d for the meeting was the escalating crisis in Libya, where Germany is acting as a mediator in a conflict he has warned could become a \u201csecond
Syria\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe are involving Europe and those players who are influential there, for
that we need Russia,\u201d Maas told Germany\u2019s NTV television. \u201cFor us, it\u2019s not
too far to fly to Moscow to discuss that with Putin.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Merkel is to invite Putin to a Berlin conference on Libya later this
month, diplomatic sources said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Putin and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan called for a ceasefire in
Libya on Wednesday, although they are seen as supporting opposing sides in the conflict.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While Turkey has sent troops to support the UN-backed Tripoli government,
Moscow is accused of backing mercenaries supporting strongman Khalifa Haftar in his fight against the government.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Haftar said he would fight on despite the call for a ceasefire.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Kremlin said last week that Saturday\u2019s talks would cover the
\u201cescalation of tensions\u201d in the Middle East after the US killed top Iranian
commander General Qasem Soleimani in a drone strike close to Baghdad.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Putin warned the killing could \u201cseriously aggravate the situation in the
region\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Iran, an ally of Moscow, responded with missile attacks on Iraq bases
housing American troops.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While Germany condemned the tit-for-tat violence and urged Tehran to end a \u201cspiral\u201d of conflict, Putin said using force would \u201cnot contribute to finding
solutions to the complex problems in the Middle East\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tehran has announced a further rollback on its commitment to a 2015
nuclear accord following the United States\u2019 unilateral withdrawal in 2018.
Russia and Germany are among world powers still backing the deal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The talks also come after a Ukrainian airliner crashed in Iran on
Wednesday killing all 176 on board. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Kremlin said the talks would also cover the conflict in Ukraine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The war with Moscow-backed separatists broke out after Russia\u2019s 2014
annexation of Crimea and has killed more than 13,000 people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Putin in December held talks with Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky in Paris in the \u201cNormandy format\u201d hosted by German and French leaders.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Vadym Prystaiko tweeted on Friday that he had
spoken to Maas about the Ukraine conflict and was \u201cwaiting for news\u201d to
emerge from the talks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Political analysts in Kiev said they expected the topic to be overshadowed
by Iran tensions, while Merkel could ask Putin to push Tehran for a
transparent investigation of the plane crash. — NNN-AGENCIES
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MOSCOW\/BERLIN, Jan 11 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Confrontation between Washington and Tehran over the US killing of a top general and turmoil in Libya are set to dominate talks in Moscow on Saturday between the leaders of Russia and Germany. Russia\u2019s Vladimir Putin will hold talks with German Chancellor AngelaMerkel in Moscow on Saturday afternoon \u2014 her […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[213,208,215,209,217],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58219"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=58219"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58219\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=58219"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=58219"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=58219"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}