12:00 a.m.: Germany is ready to allow Poland to deliver Leopard tanks, says its head of diplomacy
Germany is ready to allow Poland to deliver Leopard tanks to Ukraine, which is insistently demanding them, the head of German diplomacy, Annalena Baerbock, said on Sunday January 22, increasing pressure on Chancellor Olaf Scholz, still reluctant to comment on the matter.
"If we were asked the question, we would not oppose" the delivery to kyiv of these German-made tanks, said the environmental minister, who governs in coalition with the Social Democrats of Olaf Scholz and the Liberals.
"For the moment, the question has not been asked" by Poland, required to make an official request to Berlin, said the minister, interviewed in Paris on the French channel LCI.
The final decision, however, belongs to Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who has so far refused to comment on the question of these indirect deliveries, just like on that of directly supplying Leopards from German stocks.
"The decision (...) depends on many factors and is taken at the chancellery," said German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius in an interview with German television ARD, broadcast shortly after the interview. of the head of diplomacy.
Boris Pistorius, a social democrat like Chancellor Scholz, was however not questioned about the declarations of Annalena Baerbock.
With Reuters and AFP
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