The Chancellor will meet the new US President in Washington on Thursday.
It's about international politics - and probably also about Wikileaks founder Julian Assange.
Is there a solution for him?
Berlin / Washington - Chancellor Angela Merkel receives an honorary doctorate from Johns Hopkins University on the fringes of her visit to Washington.
Government spokesman Steffen Seibert announced on Monday in Berlin.
It is already the 18th corresponding award for Merkel. The focus of the trip on Thursday will be the exchange with the new US President Joe Biden. Around 120 politicians, artists and journalists wrote an open letter to Merkel to appeal to Biden for the release of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange.
Biden and First Lady Jill Biden are hosting a dinner in the White House in honor of the Chancellor, who will leave office after the general election in September. Merkel's husband Joachim Sauer will also attend the dinner, said Seibert. Before that, a bilateral discussion, an extended meeting and a joint press conference by Merkel and Biden are on the program. Merkel is the first head of government from Europe to have been received by Biden in the White House since he took office in January. Seibert left it open whether there will be a meeting between the Chancellor and Vice President Kamala Harris.
Biden wants to repair relations with Germany, which were heavily burdened under his predecessor Donald Trump.
The President's weekly program stated that Merkel's working visit "will reaffirm the deep and lasting bilateral relationship between the United States and Germany."
Merkel was last in the White House in April 2018, when Trump was President.
Another topic is the controversial Nord Stream 2 pipeline
According to the White House, the controversial German-Russian pipeline Nord Stream 2 will also be addressed at the meeting with Merkel.
Washington and Berlin are trying to find a compromise.
"We still believe that it is a bad deal that brings global problems with it," said White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki on Friday.
The German government affirmed that Ukraine must remain a transit country for gas from Russia regardless of Nord Stream 2.
Before Merkel's meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Selenskyj on Monday evening, Seibert referred to the conclusion of the gas deal between Ukraine and Russia.
“This sets the course,” he said.
The contract runs until the end of 2024 and provides that the parties consider extending this contract until 2034.
In addition, Merkel's meeting with Biden is likely to be about climate change, the fight against the corona pandemic, the relationship with China and Russia and numerous other topics.
In the open letter to Merkel on the Assange case available to the dpa, it says: “We sincerely ask you to help build bridges in the Julian Assange case.” The Chancellor should make it clear “how important it is in terms of defending freedom of the press to drop the lawsuit against the Wikileaks founder so that his health can recover freely with his family ”. Dealing with Assange is “incompatible with the rule of law, the dire prison conditions are a humanitarian scandal”. In view of the threatening health condition of Assange, there is an urgent need for action.
Seibert said that the federal government does not take a position on open letters - regardless of the sender or topic.
The government spokesman emphasized that the government spokesman emphasized that there was full confidence that the rule of law principles and guarantees would be guaranteed in Great Britain.
Cross-party writing
The signatories of the letter to Merkel, initiated by the investigative journalist and writer Günter Wallraff, include SPD leader Norbert Walter-Borjans and Greens leader Robert Habeck, the left parliamentary group leaders Amira Mohamed Ali and Dietmar Bartsch, Greens parliamentary group leader Katrin Göring-Eckardt and Members of the CDU, SPD, FDP, Left and Greens. Also several ex-ministers like Sigmar Gabriel (SPD), Gerhart Baum (FDP), Oskar Lafontaine (left), the writer Elfriede Jelinek, the editor of the women's magazine "Emma", Alice Schwarzer, and the UN special rapporteur on torture, Nils Melzer, signed the letter. Assange recently celebrated his 50th birthday at the HMP Belmarsh maximum security prison in London.
The US judiciary accuses Assange, together with whistleblower Chelsea Manning, of stealing secret material from US military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as a huge number of diplomatic cables and publishing them on the Internet platform Wikileaks. This put the lives of American informants in danger in many countries. For the US investigators, Assange is a spy, they are demanding his extradition. His supporters, however, see him as an investigative journalist. Assange fled to Ecuador's embassy in London in 2012 before being extradited. There he got asylum - until the wind turned in the South American country. In 2019, the whole world could watch Assange being dragged out of the embassy despite fierce resistance. dpa