Putin and Merkel Tango in Moscow, Gazprom Stirs Up Old Ghosts, Bu

Read More: http://newswalls.blogspot.com/2012/11/putin-and-merkel-tango-in-moscow.html

Last week, the German Parliament passed a resolution that asked Chancellor Angela Merkel to needle Russian President Vladimir Putin about the resurgence of repressive, antidemocratic tendencies in Russia. It did not go unnoticed at the Kremlin. And it paved the way, so to speak, for her trip to Moscow on Friday—to re-cement their “strategic partnership.”

Complaints about the resolution filtered back to the point where Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle, just before departing for Moscow, warned his countrymen not to overdo their criticism of Russia. It’s in the interests of Germany, he mused, to expand the “strategic partnership”; Russia was needed as a geopolitical and economic partner.

Read More: http://newswalls.blogspot.com/2012/11/putin-and-merkel-tango-in-moscow.html