French President Emmanuel Macron’s visit to Russia was “positive” and brought “an element of detente” to the crisis between Westerners and Moscow over Ukraine, but did not lead to a “miracle”, the President said on Tuesday. head of European diplomacy.
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“As long as there are negotiations, as long as everyone is ready to sit down at a table and talk, there is hope of not going towards a military confrontation”, said Josep Borrell in front of the press following a visit to Washington.
In this regard, the visit of the French head of state on Monday to his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin is “a positive signal” and “a good initiative”, he added.
This “represents an element of relaxation”, insisted Josep Borrell, who also spoke at an event organized by the French Embassy in the United States and the magazine The Atlantic.
Emmanuel Macron said he saw “concrete solutions” to the crisis and had received pledges from Vladimir Putin so that there would be no additional “escalation”.
Asked about the fact that there was no de-escalation in progress, Josep Borrell acknowledged that the “problem” had “not yet been resolved”.
“President Macron’s visit to Moscow was important, but it did not work miracles,” he said, “the situation remains tense.”
After having said the day before, alongside the American Secretary of State Antony Blinken, that Europe was going through the “most dangerous” moment since the end of the Cold War, the head of European diplomacy somewhat relativized the threat of conflict.
“What is important for Russia is not Ukraine”, it is “the security architecture in Europe” that the Russians “contest”, he explained.
“They put pressure on Ukraine, but not with the aim of invading Ukraine. They are putting pressure on Ukraine to get talks about what matters to them, NATO enlargement and their security concerns,” he said.