By John Helmer, Moscow
Secret negotiations have been under way for some time between high German and Russian officials, to which Chancellor Angela Merkel has been excluded. Warned by US Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland, and in a recent coded communication from outgoing President Barack Obama that she must act to save her authority, and enforce European Union sanctions against Russia, Merkel has also received an ultimatum from her cabinet and party. This was delivered in the form of a page torn out of an Old German bible in which a large black spot had been inked. Either she step aside in secret, Merkel understood the signal, or she will be forced to resign in public.
For more details of the meaning of the Black Spot, read this.
Excerpts of the new treaty, which has been drafted by ministry-level officials Merkel has been unable to stop, have been leaked by sources close to the two sides in the secret talks.
The sources claim the plan of negotiations commenced after the German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schauble (lead picture, 2nd from left), and Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier (centre), agreed that Merkel’s hatred of President Vladimir Putin had become an unprecedented political liabilitity for Gerrmany and themselves. Russian sources close to Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov (1st left) and Kremlin chief of staff Sergei Ivanov (right) believe Merkel’s backing for the US war against Russia threatened direct military clashes along Germany’s eastern front and in the Baltic Sea; further flooding of Germany with refugees from the Ukraine, the Baltic states, Syria, and Turkey. The German officials have been dismayed, Swiss sources report, by escalation of US Treasury threats against German banks; and by reports from German business lobbies, labour and farm unions of billions of Euros in commercial losses they attribute to the US and European Union (EU) sanctions.
The sources also claim the Dutch referendum vote on April 16, 2016, to reject the EU agreement with Ukraine was the “first shot in Merkel’s head”. To follow details of that vote, read this.
Intelligence reports from German agents based in London, warning that the British referendum was likely to go against remaining in the EU, reinforced German interest in talking secretly and at a senior level with Moscow. The Brexit result on June 24 was, according to these sources, “the coup de grace for Merkel”. For details of the Brexit vote, click.
German sources now claim their talks with the Russians have been following the outline of the Treaty of Rapallo. Signed between German and Soviet representatives in Italy on April 22, 1922, that pact followed the collapse of British, French and American efforts at regime change in Moscow and expanded military occupation of German territory. To open the original Rapallo pact, click. The German Chancellor, Joseph Wirth (pictured 2nd from left) and Foreign Minister Walter Rathenau led the German delegation; Georgy Chicherin (centre), the Peoples Commissar for Foreign Affairs, led the Soviet delegation.
For analysis of Russian strategy towards Germany, read this; and of Russian strategy towards the US, this.
When Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi (below, left) met Putin on June 17 in St. Petersburg, he was overheard as saying off-mike: “Vediamo a Rapallo!”
Source: http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/52180
Excerpts of the new treaty currently in drafting have been leaked as follows:
“ARTICLE 1(b): Legal relations in public and private matters arising out of the state of war, including the deployment on the territory of the one Party, threatening the territory of the other Party, of forces and weapons belonging to parties not adhering to this Treaty, shall be settled on a basis of reciprocity and guarantees of non-aggression between the Parties, including between memberships of groups directly or indirectly aimed at the other. “
“ARTICLE 5: The two Governments shall co-operate in a spirit of mutual goodwill in meeting the economic needs of both countries and the removal of all barriers to the free movement of capital and trade between them. In the event of a fundamental settlement of the above question on an international basis, an exchange of opinions shall previously take place between the two Governments. The German Government, having lately been informed of the proposed agreements of private firms, declares its readiness to give all possible support to these arrangements and to facilitate their being carried into effect.”
The sources responsible for the leaks request anonymity. No official comment from the German and Russian governments can be expected, yet.
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