German Chancellor Olaf Scholz arrived in Washington on Thursday night, where he plans to meet one-on-one with US President Joe Biden the next day, for talks expected to focus on Russia's war against Ukraine.
Unusually, a joint press conference after the Friday meeting is not planned and Scholz is not being accompanied by journalists from Berlin, as is normally the case. A business delegation was also not on board the government plane.
"It is an expression of the quality of trans-Atlantic relations and of the good cooperation between the American president and the German chancellor that we exchange and talk a lot and very often," Scholz said before his departure.
Telephone calls and video conferences were not always enough, he noted, referring to their decision to sit down face-to-face.
"This is necessary in a global situation where many things have become very difficult," the chancellor said. "I am looking forward to it."
Scholz's White House meeting is his only official appointment. An interview with CNN journalist Fareed Zakaria is planned for after the Biden talk.
This will be the chancellor's second visit to the White House in the nearly 15 months since he took office. He was first in Washington in early February last year and Ukraine played a central role then too.
At that time, tens of thousands of Russian soldiers had already amassed at the Ukrainian border. A good two weeks later, on February 24, 2022 Russia invaded Ukraine.
