Apple of Discord: German Politicians Divided Over Russia's Return to G8

© Sputnik / Aleksey Nikolskyi / Go to the mediabankG8 Summit in Northern Ireland
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At this stage, Russia's return to the G8 format is impossible, the Office of the Federal Chancellor Angela Merkel said, cited by Deutsche Welle.

Russia's return to the G8 won't take place "until the causes that led to its exclusion are eliminated," the media source wrote.

"The return to the G8 format is now not at all a subject [for discussion]," the adviser to the Chancellor said, commenting on the issue.

German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier - Sputnik International
Seeking a Thaw? German FM Names Conditions of Russia's Return to G8
The article also noted that the upcoming G7 summit in Japan on May 26-27 will be devoted to the issue of the "Russian-Ukrainian conflict."

At the end of the meeting, "ways to resolve the conflict between Russia and Ukraine will be set forth in […] the final communique of the summit."

Earlier, several German politicians criticized the way G7 countries isolated Russia from the negotiations format and stressed the importance of cooperation with Moscow. For instance, Gernot Erler urged not to slam the door on Moscow and to welcome it back in the group of major industrialized countries, German magazine Focus reported.

"There is nothing good in the exclusion of Russia from the decision-making on global issues," the politician said in an interview with the magazine.

Wolfgang Ischinger, Chairman of the Munich Security Conference - Sputnik International
West Will Definitely Find the Way to Return Russia to G8
According to Erler, Germany's Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier "has quite rightly drawn attention to the fact that the G8 is an important international format in which there is a need to cooperate with Russia."

Russia formally joined the G8 club of industrial nations in 1998. In 2014, the original G7 members said they were not coming to Russia's resort city of Sochi for a G8 summit, citing the Ukraine crisis. Instead, they met in Brussels without Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Western countries have repeatedly accused Russia of being involved in the Ukrainian conflict and reacted with a number of economic and political restrictions against Russian politicians and individuals, although Moscow constantly denied the accusations.

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