BERLIN, October 14. /TASS/. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and the entire German delegation were stuck at the airport in Sharm el-Sheikh for three hours after Monday’s peace summit marking the official conclusion of a ceasefire deal in the Gaza Strip, the Bild newspaper writes.
It said that Merz returned to Berlin seven hours later than scheduled - at 4:06 a.m. (5:06 a.m. Moscow time) on Tuesday. At first, the entire German delegation had to wait more than 40 minutes for the motorcade that was supposed to take it to the plane. Then there were problems at the airport: Merz's plane was initially not given permission to take off, and later the aircraft was towed to the wrong area.
Merz had to wait. From time to time, he was informed that the plane was ready for takeoff. But in the end, he had to wait three hours. The plane took off at 12:27 a.m. (1:27 a.m. Moscow time). In all, including at the summit, Merz's delays totalled seven hours: two hours waiting for US President Donald Trump, who arrived at the summit almost two hours late, almost one hour waiting for a car and three hours at the airport, says Bild.
Earlier, Die Welt reported that the German chancellor, the French president and other European politicians were just spectators at the peace summit.
During the summit Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, Emir of Qatar Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani, Trump and Turkish leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan signed a final ceasefire agreement for the Palestinian enclave. According to al-Sisi's office, the summit participants called for the implementation of the next stages of the Trump-brokered plan to resolve the conflict, including governance, infrastructure rehabilitation and a political settlement.