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Russian return to G7 'unimaginable' for now: Merkel

PUBLISHED ON MAY 21, 2015 5:28 PM

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German Chancellor Angela Merkel addresses the lower house of Parliament Bundestag in Berlin,Germany on May 21, 2015 -- PHOTO: AFP 

 

BERLIN (AFP) - German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Thursday that a return of Russia to the Group of Seven major industrialised democracies was "unimaginable" as long as it flouts international law in Ukraine.

But she also sought to allay Moscow's fears about European influence in its Soviet-era satellite states, saying the so-called Eastern Partnership project was "not an instrument" of EU enlargement policy.

Ms Merkel - who hosts a G7 summit next month - was later on Thursday heading to a meeting in the Latvian capital Riga between leaders of the EU and Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine.

The German leader said that the meeting would be held "under completely different circumstances" to the last such summit in Vilnius in late 2013.