Germany protests over Russia’s ejection of conservative MP

Germany formally protested to Russia yesterday over Moscow's refusal to let a conservative German member of parliament into the country, a decision Berlin criticised as unacceptable amid East-West tensions over the Ukraine crisis.

Karl-Georg Wellmann, a member of chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats and head of the German-Ukraine parliamentary group, called Russia a “warmonger” earlier this year for what he said was its support of separatist forces in Ukraine.

Sanctions

Mr Wellmann, who has called for tougher sanctions against Russia, could not be reached for comment. He was quoted by

Focus

magazine as saying he spent Sunday night in the transit section of a

Moscow

airport before returning to Germany on Monday morning.

He said that although he had a diplomatic passport to enter Russia, he was told at the Moscow airport he was barred from visiting until 2019.

Mr Wellmann also said that he had intended to meet Konstantin Kosachev, international affairs committee chairman in Russia's upper house, Sergei Glazyev, economic adviser to Vladimir Putin, and German embassy officials.

The German government issued a protest to the Russian ambassador in Berlin, while Germany’s ambassador in Moscow Rüdiger Freiherr von Fritsch made a demarche to the Russian foreign ministry.

“From the German government’s point of view Russia’s refusal to allow . . . Wellmann’s entry is incomprehensible and unacceptable,” a German foreign ministry spokesman said. “Germany expects the refusal to allow him in to be lifted.”

Russia’s foreign ministry declined to comment. – (Reuters)