Germany has rejected Trump's bid to bring Russia back into the G7

• Germany has rejected President Trump's suggestion that Russia should be re-admitted to the "Group of Seven" meeting of leading economies.
• Russia was expelled in 2014 after President Vladimir Putin annexed the Crimean Peninsula and backed a rebellion in eastern Ukraine.
• Heiko Maas, Germany's foreign secretary, said there was no prospect of re-admitting Russia until it had resolved the situation in eastern Ukraine and Crimea.
• 'As long as we do not have a solution there, I see no chance for this,' he said.
• Trump told Fox News in June: "It's not a question of what he's done. It's a question of common sense."

Germany has rejected President Trump's proposal for Russia to be re-admitted to the "Group of Seven" meeting of leading economies.

Russia had been a member of the intergovernmental group — which comprises Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the UK, and the US — as an eighth member until its expulsion in 2014 after Putin annexed the Crimean Peninsula and backed a rebellion in eastern Ukraine.

Heiko Maas, Germany's foreign secretary, said there was no prospect of re-admitting Russia until it had resolved the situation in eastern Ukraine and Crimea.

"The reason for Russia's exclusion was the annexation of Crimea and intervention in eastern Ukraine," he told the German-language Rheinische Post newspaper in comments reported by Reuters. "As long as we do not have a solution there, I see no chance for this."

Trump said in June it was "common sense" for Russian President Vladimir Putin to be invited to the G7.

"It's not a question of what he's done. It's a question of common sense," the president told Fox News on June 3.

"The problem is many of the things that we talk about are about Putin, so we're just sitting around wasting time because then you have to finish your meeting and somebody has to call Putin or deal with Putin on different things. And I say have him in the room," he said.

Maas admitted that Russia remains an important part of the G7 summits.

"We also know that we need Russia in order solve conflicts in Syria, Libya, and Ukraine," he said.

But he said that adding Russia to the G7 format was not necessary, given that Russia remains part of the G20, a larger group of leading economies.

"The G7 and G20 are two sensibly coordinated formats," he said.

"We don't need G11 or G12."