SPD Caucus Chief Mützenich Urges Diplomatic Efforts To End NATO’s War on Russia in Ukraine

Nov. 12, 2022 (EIRNS)—German Social Democratic (SPD) Bundestag caucus leader Rolf Mützenich has reiterated his call for more diplomatic action to end the Ukraine war. “I would like to see as much talk about diplomacy as about arms deliveries,” he said today for Neue Berliner Redaktionsgesellschaft newspaper chain. He remarked polemically that sometimes he has the impression that “diplomacy” was in danger of becoming a dirty word in the public discussion.

It was not a matter of “negotiating with Russia over the heads of Ukraine,” Mützenich stressed, but it was necessary to talk to governments around the world “that could still have some influence on Putin.” He argued for “not closing small diplomatic windows carelessly.”

Referring to the debate in the SPD over its past Russia policy, the faction leader warned against exaggerated self-flagellation by claims that past cooperation with Russia had been all bad. “I am not willing to go in sackcloth and ashes,” he said, “the SPD’s policy of détente (in the 1970s—ed.) had been “an important door-opener for the peaceful establishment of the sovereignty of formerly oppressed states in Eastern Europe... There is no need to apologize for that.”