Meseberg castle (Germany), August 20 - Neftegaz.RU. Vladimir Putin and German Chancellor Angela Merkel discussed a Russian-German Nord Stream-2 gas pipeline and other heated topics at the German government's guest house Meseberg Castle, 65km north of Berlin, on August 18.
Putin arrived in Germany after a short stop in Austria where he danced arm in arm with Austrian Foreign Minister Karin Kneissl at her wedding.
Among guests were also Austrian chancellor Sebastian Kurz and vice chancellor Heinz-Christian Strache from the Freedom party (FPÖ). The Austrian government said Putin attended as «a personal guest».
Merkel warned 1 day before the meeting against expecting too much from her discussions with Putin, but said the 2 countries needed to remain in permanent dialogue on the long list of problems they face.
The pipeline was a key topic in the 2 leaders' bilateral talks. On the planned Nord Stream 2 pipeline, Merkel said that « I believe that even after the launch of Nord Stream 2, Ukraine should play its role in gas transit to Europe, and I am very pleased that we managed to start a negotiation process on this topic» .
Putin told reporters that such a move had to make sense for Moscow from a business perspective. «I would like to stress that the main thing is that the Ukrainian transit - which is traditional for us - meets economic demands,» he said. «Nord Stream 2 is exclusively an economic project.»
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov confirmed that Nord Stream was brought up during the talks. «Both Putin and Merkel agreed that it would be absolutely wrong to somehow politicize this project,» Peskov said.
Peskov said the threat of possible U.S. sanctions against companies involved in the project was not discussed on Saturday.
To read the full story in Russian.
