Germany Blasts Republicans in U.S. on Iran Nuclear Talks

by Patrick Donahue
1:57 PM EDT March 12, 2015

(Bloomberg) -- German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s foreign minister criticized U.S. Republican lawmakers for questioning nuclear talks with Iran, saying in Washington that they’re undermining efforts to forge an agreement.

Wading into the U.S. debate as six world powers seek a deal to halt any attempt by Iran to build a nuclear bomb, Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said the letter by 47 Republicans fuels mistrust among Iranian negotiators and is “not helpful.”

“This would have been difficult enough without this letter,” Steinmeier told an audience at the Center for Strategic and International Studies on Thursday. “Now it’s become more difficult. This is not trivial.”

While paying tribute to U.S.-German bonds since World War II, Steinmeier used his trip to press home Germany’s view that shipments of lethal arms to Ukraine would inflame the conflict and that Iran is “negotiating seriously.”

Pushing back against U.S. advocates of arming Ukraine, he said Germany views Russia as a neighbor and tends to conduct foreign policy in “many shades of gray,” not black and white.

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