The Iran war is a “disastrous mistake” that breaches international law, Germany’s president said on Tuesday in an unusually blunt rebuke of U.S. President Donald Trump‘s foreign policy, which he said marked a rupture for German ties with its biggest post-war ally.
In a scathing verbal attack, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, whose largely ceremonial role allows him to speak more freely than politicians, took a far more critical line than Chancellor Friedrich Merz, who has skirted questions on the war’s legality.
“Our foreign policy does not become more convincing just because we do not call a breach of international law a breach of international law,” Steinmeier, a former foreign minister from the center left Social Democratic Party, said in a speech at the foreign ministry.