German Foreign Ministry calls on Russia to stop spreading false information
The German government harshly refuted the statements by the Russian Foreign Ministry that German Chancellor Angela Merkel made statements in favor of the nomination of Bulgarian EU Commissioner Kristalina Georgieva for the post of UN Secretary General during the G20 summit in Hangzhou. “The spread of objectively false information on an official level is an unfriendly act,” a representative of the Foreign Ministry of Germany, Martin Schäfer, said on Monday, September 12 in Berlin.
A spokesman from the German government, Steffen Seibert, also rejected accusations of Berlin’s interference in the selection of the new head of the United Nations. He stressed that at the moment, ten candidates are seeking the post and Georgieva is not one of them. The day before, the Bulgarian press published information that Merkel allegedly persuaded Russian President Vladimir Putin to support Georgieva’s candidacy instead of the current head of UNESCO, Irina Bokova, whose candidacy for the post of Secretary General of the United Nations was announced by the Permanent Mission of Bulgaria to the United Nations in February 2016.
On September 11, the official representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry, Maria Zakharova, said that Berlin allegedly tried to influence Moscow’s position and added that these attempts were unsuccessful. The German side insists that there was no such conversation on the sidelines of the G20 summit between the leaders of Germany and Russia.
The post of UN Secretary General has been held by South Korean diplomat Ban Ki-moon since 2007. His term of office expires on January 1 of next year.