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CSU leader Markus Söder: “Taurus is not a nuclear bomb”
Photo: Dwi Anoraganingrum / Panama Pictures / IMAGO
Parts of the traffic light want to finally deliver the long-requested Taurus cruise missiles to Kiev - but Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) is blocking the advances.
He fears that this will drag Germany too far into war.
CSU boss Markus Söder has now sharply criticized the back and forth in the debate.
“The issue presents a catastrophic picture internationally when half of the federal government wants to deliver and the Chancellor says no,” Söder told the “Augsburger Allgemeine.”
Scholz is causing foreign policy damage for Germany with his blocking of deliveries.
Söder warned that foreign countries are looking closely at Germany when it comes to Ukraine policy.
"It's a bad picture when the strongest country in Europe shows such disunity," criticized the Bavarian Prime Minister.
It also makes no sense to publicly rule out the supply of a specific weapon if the West wants to provide Ukraine with as much military support as possible.
"The Taurus is not a nuclear bomb," he emphasized.
“I wouldn’t criticize him so harshly for that.”
The CDU foreign politician Armin Laschet sees it completely differently.
Laschet said on Deutschlandfunk that he did not have all the information that the Chancellor had that led him to make his decision.
"But I have always understood his reserved nature on this issue." One must ensure that the war does not escalate further.
"And that's why it would be good if he better explained his considerations and the results he came to," said Laschet about Scholz's communication.
With regard to his attitude, however, he emphasized: "I would not criticize him as harshly as he is doing at the moment."
Scholz justifies his refusal to deliver the cruise missiles by saying that Germany could be drawn into the Ukraine war, even leading to direct involvement of the German military.
However, many experts deny that such an automatism exists.
Rather, the Ukrainian armed forces could very well operate and program the cruise missiles themselves.
The Taurus is a type of high-tech rocket from the Bundeswehr (read more about the controversial topic here).
mrc/dpa/AFP