Germany’s Foreign Minister and France’s Jean-Noel Barrot met with Syria’s de facto leader Ahmad al-Sharaa in Damascus, on Friday.
The two top diplomats are the first EU ministers to visit Syria since the toppling of President Bashar Assad four weeks ago.
“My trip today — together with my French counterpart and on behalf of the EU — is a clear signal to the Syrians: A new political beginning between Europe and Syria, between Germany and Syria, is possible,” Baerbock said, according to a ministry statement issued before she left for Damascus.
Syria’s ‘new chapter has begun’ — Baerbock
“The painful chapter of Assad’s rule is over. A new chapter has begun, but not yet written. Because at this moment the Syrians have the chance to take the fate of their state into their own hands again,” Baerbock said in a post on social media platform X.
Baerbock has said that the new Syrian government’s relations with Germany and the EU is conditional on women and men of all ethnic and religious beliefs playing a role in Syria’s new political system and that they are protected.
French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot posted on social media platform X: “Together, France and Germany stand alongside the Syrian people, in all their diversity.”
After arriving in Damascus, Barrot expressed hope for a “sovereign, stable and peaceful” Syria.
It was also a “hope that the aspirations of all Syrians can be realized,” he added, “but it is a fragile hope.”
Baerbock and Barrot visit notorious Saydnaya prison
One of the first stops on the trip was the notorious Saydnaya prison, dubbed “the human slaughterhouse” by Amnesty International.
Barrot and Baerbock were accompanied by White Helmet rescuers as they toured the cells of the facility.
Volunteers founded the White Helmets in 2013 after the start of the civil war. They helped rescue victims after airstrikes, but were also deployed after Syria and Turkey’s devastating earthquakes in 2023.
Humanitarian groups say Syrian authorities under the Assad regime, systematically tortured and executed thousands of civilians.
“You simply can’t imagine the horror of some places,” Baerbock said. “But people have gone through hell here near the Syrian capital Damascus. They were killed using methods that are unimaginable in a civilized world.”
Dealing with Syria’s new leaders
The visit to Syria comes four weeks after rebel groups in Syria, led by the Islamist , swiftly gained control over the country, with former President Bashar Assad fleeing to Russia. HTS leader Ahmad al-Sharaa is now considered the head of Syria’s transitonal government.
In the days following Assad’s ousting, Western governments had been weighing up how best to engage with Syria’s new leadership considering HTS being under EU sanctions and also a designated terrorist group.
“We know where HTS comes from ideologically, what it has done in the past. But we also hear and see the desire for moderation and for understanding with other important actors,” Baerbock said in a statement.
Nearly 1 million Syrians in Germany
, around 973,000 Syrians were living in Germany at the end of 2023. Some 712,000 of them have been granted refugee status.
Most came in 2015, when then-Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government decided to allow refugees fleeing Syria’s civil war into the country.
One day after the fall of the Assad regime in Syria, the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF) issued an immediate freeze on asylum applications from Syrian citizens.
kb/wd (AFP, dpa)
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