Germany seeks Russian support after Donald Trump's Iran decisionDW/Germany, May 12, 2018
German-Russian relations had soured because of alleged Russian cyberattacks and the Kremlin's annexation of Crimea. But the US President's hardline policy on around the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) for Iran has intensified the search for common ground in Berlin and Moscow. German Chancellor Angela Merkel is scheduled to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin in Sochi on May 18, and on Friday morning the two spoke on the telephone.
"The importance of preserving the deal from a point of view of international and regional stability was highlighted," the Kremlin said in a statement following the call.
Merkel's spokesman, Steffen Seibert, said that the two leaders had agreed to push for the other signatories to the deal — France, the UK and China — to continue abiding by it. Merkel also touched on the future of the agreement in remarks she made in the city of Münster on Friday.
"I believe it is not right that a deal which was agreed, which was voted upon in the UN Security Council and unanimously approved, should be unilaterally terminated," Merkel said, adding that the US decision
"damages trust in the international order." The foreign ministers of Germany, France and the UK will meet with their Iranian counterpart next Tuesday in Brussels. But equally important, if the JCPOA is to survive, would be coordination with Russia and China, since those two nations can offer Tehran the biggest incentives to stay in the nuclear deal.
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