U.S. President Donald Trump’s arguments about Russia returning to the G8 were unconvincing, said German Chancellor Angela Merkel during a broadcast on television station ARD.

“I cannot say exactly what motivated him (Trump)…Of course, we asked him, but the answer was not convincing,” Merkel said.

According to her, the American leader said that “Russia plays an important role in matters of war and peace, which, of course, is indisputable,” but in the G7 format are “governments that share …

The Speaker of the Verkhovna Rada, Andriy Parubiy will visit Washington where he will discuss with his counterparts from the United States, Georgia, Lithuania and Moldova the ways of preventing the implementation of the Nord Stream 2 project.

"At the end of this month... I will be in Washington. We will have a meeting with [Speaker of the US House of Representatives Paul Ryan]; with the speakers of Georgia, Moldova, Lithuania and I hope Poland. One of the topics of our meeting will be …

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov stated that Russia never asked to be allowed back into the Group of Eight (G8) and considers the Group of Twenty (G20) as the most promising format for the future.

"We never asked to be allowed back," Lavrov said on Russia's Channel One, Interfax reports. He said that when Western partners decided that Russia would be excluded from the summit and that they would return to the G7 format, Moscow accepted "their decision."

"We have been working well in …