Parliamentarians of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) have caused a political row in Germany by welcoming an apparent US initiative to repair and re-open the Nord Stream gas pipelines in the Baltic Sea between Russia and Germany.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Wednesday confirmed that negotiations with the US over Ukraine had included a discussion of restoring Nord Stream, after the German newspaper Handelsblatt reported that a US investor had applied to the US government to buy the pipeline.

CDU Bundestag member Thomas Bareiss welcomed the idea in a long LinkedIn post in which he remarked "how enterprising our American friends are."

"When peace is restored and the weapons fall silent between #Russia and #Ukraine (and hopefully that will happen soon), relations will normalize, the embargoes will be lifted sooner or later and, of course, #gas can flow again, perhaps this time in a #pipeline under US control," he wrote.

He was backed up by Jan Heinisch, a member of the CDU's energy working group in the party's coalition negotiations with the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD). "If a just and secure peace is found one day, then we must be allowed to talk again about buying Russian gas," Heinisch told Politico.

To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video

Nord Stream consists of two gas pipelines, each containing two pipes, running from northwestern Russia to Germany's northeastern coast. While Nord Stream 2, completed in 2021, has never been put into operation, Nord Stream 1 was opened in 2011, and supplied Russian gas all over Europe........

© Deutsche Welle