30 November,2018 11:37 AM IST | Berlin | Agencies
Angela Merkel. Pic/AFP
German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Thursday there is "no military solution" to the Ukraine conflict after President Petro Poroshenko asked for NATO naval support in his country's standoff with Russia.
Blaming Russia for the tensions, Merkel said: "We ask the Ukrainian side too to be sensible because we know that we can only solve things through being reasonable and through dialogue because there is no military solution to these disputes".
Russia fired on and then seized three Ukrainian ships on Sunday, accusing them of illegally entering its waters in the Sea of Azov and detaining their crew, in a dramatic spike in tensions that raises fears of a wider escalation. Kiev accused Russia, which annexed the Crimea peninsula from Ukraine in 2014, of launching "a new phase of aggression".
Merkel said she would discuss the conflict with Russian President Vladimir Putin at a G20 summit in Argentina this weekend. "The full blame for this goes to the Russian president," she said.
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