Kremlin says killing of Soleimani is not reason of Merkel’s upcoming visit to Russia

8 January 2020

The death of the head of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards’ elite Quds Force, General Qasem Soleimani, is not the reason behind the upcoming visit of German Chancellor Angela Merkel to Russia.

“There is no connection,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told TASS answering a question whether Soleimani’s killing prompted such a visit.

The Kremlin press service reported earlier that the German chancellor is paying a working visit to Russia on January 11 at the invitation of Russian President Vladimir Putin. It is planned that the talks will focus on current issues on international agenda, including the developments in Syria, Libya and deterioration in the Middle East after the US airstrike on the Baghdad airport on January 3.

The issues surrounding settlement of the domestic Ukrainian conflict in the context of implementing the 2015 Minsk Package of Measures are also expected to be discussed as well as implementation of agreements reached at the Normandy Four summit in Paris on December 9, 2019.

Read more at https://tass.com/politics/1106305