German foreign minister: Trump’s invitation to Putin for the G20 is ‘an opportunity’

German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul said Russian President Vladimir Putin’s participation in a G20 meeting could be the start of “serious negotiations” to end Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

US President Donald Trump invited the Russian president to the next G20 summit in Miami, scheduled for December.

Many leaders, including Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas, expressed strong reservations about the invitation. But Germany’s Wadephul struck a more optimistic tone during a press conference with his Canadian counterpart in Ottawa.

The invitation “will be a litmus test, also for Vladimir Putin, to negotiate. So these kinds of opportunities will have to be seized. We have repeatedly asked the Russian government and Vladimir Putin to sit at the negotiating table. And if it is an opportunity, then perhaps it would be at least a start for serious negotiations,” he said.

He added that the precondition for a meaningful conversation would be a ceasefire during the talks.

Canadian Foreign Minister Anita Anand said she was surprised by Trump’s invitation to Putin, but added that Canada would show up anyway, because that is “what diplomacy really is”.

Wadephul’s remarks differed from his government’s official stance. Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s spokesman, Stefan Kornelius, had said earlier this week that “the German government does not view relations with Russia as business as usual” and that it was coordinating a joint response with its partners.

The White House invitation is the latest US effort to reintegrate Moscow into the international diplomatic sphere and could lead to Putin’s first G20 appearance since 2019.