REUTERS, Berlin

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz yesterday said Iran’s leadership was humiliating the United States and getting US officials to travel to Pakistan and then leave without results, in an unusually abrupt rebuke over the conflict.

Merz also said he did not see what exit strategy the US was pursuing in the Iran war, comments that underlined deep divisions between Washington and its European Nato allies, which had already been festering over Ukraine and other issues.

“The Iranians are obviously very skilled at negotiating, or rather, very skillful at not negotiating, letting the Americans travel to Islamabad and then leave again without any result,” he said during a talk to students in the town of Marsberg.

“An entire nation is being humiliated by the Iranian leadership, especially by these so-called Revolutionary Guards. And so I hope that this ends as quickly as possible,” he added.

US President Donald Trump has harshly criticised Nato allies for not sending their navies to help open the Strait of Hormuz during the conflict. The waterway has remained virtually shut, causing market turmoil and unprecedented disruption in energy supplies.

Merz reiterated that Germans and Europeans were not consulted before the US and Israel started attacking Iran on February 28, and that he had conveyed his scepticism directly to Trump afterwards.

“If I had known that it would continue like this for five or six weeks and get progressively worse, I would have told him even more emphatically,” Merz said, comparing it to previous US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.