U.S. is being humiliated by Iran, lacks strategy in negotiations - Germany's Merz

Maja Hitij/Getty Images News

German Chancellor ‌Friedrich Merz has said the Iranian leadership is humiliating the U.S., which "quite obviously went into this war without any strategy," amid a lack of progress in negotiations to end the conflict.

"The Iranians are obviously negotiating very skilfully — or simply very skilfully not negotiating," Merz said during a visit to a school in western Germany. "A whole nation is being humiliated by the Iranian leadership."

He added that the Americans "have no truly convincing strategy in the negotiations," pointing to U.S. officials traveling to Pakistan earlier this month and leaving without results.

Merz reiterated that Europe was not consulted before the U.S. and Israel launched a joint attack on Iran on Feb. 28, saying he expressed his skepticism directly to Trump afterward.

"If I'd known that this would go on for five or six weeks and get progressively worse, I would've made my point to him more forcefully," the chancellor ‌said. "The problem with conflicts like this is always the same – you don't just get in, you also have to get out. We saw that very painfully in Afghanistan and Iraq."

Merz added that the war has directly impacted Germany's economy and is "costing us a great deal of money," calling for an end to the war "as soon as possible."

His unusually sharp rebuke comes as U.S.-Iran negotiations make little headway. Iran offered to reopen the Strait of Hormuz if the U.S. lifted its blockade of the country's ports and postponed nuclear talks. But the U.S. is reportedly unwilling to accept the offer.

_-- The Associated Press contributed to this report._

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