With his Moscow-friendly policy, German Chancellor [Gerhard] Schroeder had come under criticism. Now he is able to chalk up a diplomatic success. In a telephone call, he agreed with Russian President Vladimir Putin that the result of new elections in Ukraine would be respected. Earlier, a confidant of Putin had warned of bloodshed.
Moscow: After a telephone call between Schroeder and Putin, the Federal Press Office stated: "The federal chancellor and the Russian president agreed that the result of a new election that takes place on the basis of the Ukrainian constitution and reflects the will of the Ukrainian people, must be strictly respected."
In a telephone conversation with the Kremlin head a week ago, Schroeder had already expressed his concern about the situation in Ukraine after the disputed presidential election, but deliberately avoided accusations directed at his personal friend, Der Spiegel reported. "You have to be careful whom you support," Schroeder reportedly had told the Kremlin head. However, unlike Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer, Schroeder could not bring himself to make a clear public statement.
This caused annoyance among the government coalition, because Putin had massively intervened in the Ukrainian election campaign and congratulated Ukrainian Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych twice on his victory in the run-off for the presidency, which, according to US and EU assessments, had been massively rigged.
On the sidelines of an EU conference in The Hague, Fischer said today: "We have opted for democracy." He expressly praised the intervention of Javier Solana, EU high representative for common foreign and security policy, who had travelled to Kiev as a mediator. The EU only intervened when there had been justified doubts about the legitimacy of the election result, he said, adding: "For us it is important that the democratic principle is maintained." The actual will of the voters has to be reflected clearly, he stated. Fischer stated that he is in favour of repeating the second round of the presidential election.

Source: Spiegel Online web site, Hamburg
BBC Monitoring