Minister of Defense Ursula von der Leyen said that President-Elect Donald Trump should be reminded of foreign policy issues, essential for the USA and its allies, and, in view of this, take a firm stance in respect to Russia, RIA News reports.

The German Minister called the annexation of the Crimea and bombings in Syria’s Aleppo as the essential issues, on which Russia and Western countries have different views

“Donald Trump should clarify, on which side he is now: on the side of truth, peace, democracy or he cares only about the initiation of a new friendship”, - von der Leyen said to ZDF Channel.

The German Minister also warned Trump not to treat NATO as business, keeping in mind only financial issues. During pre-election campaign, the Republican repeatedly spoke out for reconsideration of relationships of Washington with allies and declared that alliance members should pay “fair price” for security assurance.

“I hope that his advisors will say and he will understand that NATO is not a business. It is not a venture”, Ursula von der Leyen said.

“This is not the thing, which we can speak about: I am not interested in the past. The values, which we represent together, are not interesting for me, instead of this, I will look how much money I can obtain and if I can make a good deal. Nobody governs the country, and this is also not the principle of NATO”, she added.

Trump was elected as US President at the elections on November 8 and will assume office on 20 January 2017.

Within the last months, the situation in Syria’s Aleppo escalated; there are heavy combats in the city and in the neighborhoods. On October 18, the Ministry of Defense of Russia suspended flights over Aleppo, air attacks in this district were not made for more than three weeks.

Moscow said many times that the decisions on air attacks in Syria are taken only after comprehensive review of intelligence data. Meanwhile, the previous charges of Western countries on bombings by air-space forces on the civilian target were never substantiated.