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Western sanctions policy unlikely to resolve Ukraine crisis - German politician

Gregor Gysi criticized Germany’s government for sending what he described as the wrong signals to the world while trying to settle the Ukrainian conflict

Gregor Gysi EPA/MAURIZIO GAMBARINI

Gregor Gysi

© EPA/MAURIZIO GAMBARINI

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Ukraine hostilities threaten presidential poll, warns senior German official

BERLIN, May 09. /ITAR-TASS/. The policy of sanctions against Russia cannot help resolve the Ukrainian crisis, says a leading German left-wing politician.

“The West places stakes on a senseless policy of sanctions and stationing of NATO forces near Russian borders,” Gregor Gysi, leader of the socialist left-wing political party The Left (Die Linke), told the Passauer Neue Presse newspaper on Friday. “Sanctions and war-mongering will not help.”

Gysi also criticized Germany’s government for sending what he described as the wrong signals to the world while trying to settle the Ukrainian conflict.

Firstly, this was well-seen at German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s meeting with Ukrainian presidential candidate and businessman Petro Poroshenko, where the chancellor noted the need for a diplomatic resolution of the crisis in the country.

Secondly, German officials still tend to think in “black-and white” terms, denouncing the Russian leadership as "bad" and "proclaiming everybody else as good”, Gysi said.

At the same time, senior members of Merkel's Christian Democrats have criticized the Left Party’s leadership for choosing “an absolutely wrong course” while setting priorities in their foreign and security policy.

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