The government of German Chancellor Angela Merkel does not exclude a possibility of change of the position of official Berlin toward the Nord Stream 2 project due to the poisoning of Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny, as Deutsche Welle reports.
“The German chancellor believes it's wrong to rule anything out over Moscow's refusal to acknowledge the findings that Alexei Navalny was poisoned,” Merkel’s Spokesperson Steffen Seibert stated answering the question whether Merkel insists on decoupling the Navalny case from the Nord Stream 2 project.
He also stated that Berlin “certainly not talking about months or the end of the year" in waiting for the reply from Moscow.
On September 6, Foreign Minister of Germany Heiko Maas stated that the response of the Kremlin concerning the responsibility for the poisoning of Navalny might determine whether or not Germany changes its support for Nord Stream 2 project, which will supply Russian gas to Germany.
Earlier, Chancellor of Germany Angela Merkel confirmed the intention of her government to continue and finish the construction of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline.
On August 20, Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny was urgently hospitalized during his return to Moscow from Tomsk. He felt bad during the flight and the plane was urgently landed in Omsk. Alexei Navalny was put on a ventilator. He regains consciousness. The preliminary diagnosis is poisoning with the psycholytic drug. Currently, Alexei Navalny is in a coma. Later, the doctors reported that Navalny was not poisoned. The head physician claimed that his metabolism has been impaired.
On September 2, a special laboratory of the Bundeswehr has conducted a toxicological test using samples from Alexei Navalny and came to the conclusion that the Russian politician was poisoned with a substance of neuro-paralytic agent from the Novichok group.