The chairwoman of the German Parliament’s defense committee, Marie-Agnès Strack-Zimmermann, has pressed German Chancellor Olaf Scholz to deliver tanks to Ukraine.
Hours after the German executive announced that it would not stand in the way of Poland’s supply of German-made Leopard tanks, Strack-Zimmermann said that Scholz should issue an export permit from Germany, the Funke media group reported and the BR 24 radio station picked up.
«The proposal to deliver Leopard 2 battle tanks to Ukraine at short notice as part of a pan-European initiative is, as before, correct. Germany should finally issue an export permit for this,» the chairwoman of the Bundestag defense committee asserted.
She also called on Ukrainian soldiers to start training with Leopard 2 tanks to be supplied by Poland.
Strack-Zimmermann’s message comes after Berlin announced that it will not stand in the way of Poland’s supply of Leopard tanks, announced by its president, Andrzej Duda, on Wednesday from Ukrainian territory.
«Germany should not stand in the way when other countries make decisions to support Ukraine, regardless of the decision Germany makes,» Vice Chancellor Habeck, a member of the environmentalist and pacifist Greens party, said Thursday.
The Leopard is a German-made battle tank model, which also plays a key role because, as a rule, the transfer of domestically manufactured weapons to third parties must be approved by Berlin.
President Duda confirmed this new armament supply during a meeting with his Ukrainian and Lithuanian counterparts, Volodimir Zelenski and Gitanas Nauseda, respectively, in the western Ukrainian city of Lviv.
The Polish government has acknowledged that, with this decision, Warsaw hopes to encourage other countries to follow in its footsteps. Although Germany has not been mentioned directly, pressure is growing on Berlin to supply tanks to the Ukrainian army.
Source: (EUROPA PRESS)
