Merkel condemns Nuland's statements about EU
German Chancellor Angela Merkel has expressed her disapproval of the way in which U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland spoke about the European Union during her leaked telephone conversation with U.S. Ambassador to Kyiv Geoffrey Pyatt.
"The chancellor finds these remarks totally unacceptable," BBC quoted Merkel's spokesperson Christiane Wirtz as saying on Friday.
As reported, the recording of a telephone conversation between Nuland and Pyatt on YouTube has had over 40,000 views, and the comments are mostly negative.
Nuland suggested in the talk with Pyatt that the EU should not be meddling in settling the crisis in Ukraine. "So that would be great, I think, to help glue this thing and have the UN help glue it and, you 17:13:59 EET-2know, f*** the EU," Nuland said with reference to UN Special Coordinator Robert Serry's planned visit to Ukraine in the near future.
"Exactly. And I think we've got to do something to make it stick together because, you can be pretty sure, that if it does start to gain altitude, the Russians will be working behind the scenes to try to torpedo it," Pyatt says in response.
U.S. Department of State Spokesperson Jen Psaki said at a news briefing in Washington that Nuland had apologized to the EU for her remarks.
