The German federal government defended the scheduled meeting on Monday with Syria’s interim president Ahmed al‑Sharaa. Government spokesperson Stefan Kornelius told a news agency that staying in touch with the Syrian regime is important. He added that meeting the ruler for lunch is not a special honour but simply a matter of courtesy, and that he expressly rejects the accusation that al‑Sharaa is a war criminal.
Opposition came from the German Kurdish community, which criticised the visit. They described al‑Sharaa as a former jihadist leader whose organisation, Hayat Tahrir al‑Sham (HTS), had been listed as a terrorist group by the United Nations for many years. He is held responsible for numerous human‑rights violations, war crimes and crimes against humanity. As a former leader of the Al‑Nusra Front, al‑Sharaa is linked to massacres, expulsions and systematic violence against civilians in Syria, including Kurds of all faiths, Alawites, Druze, and Christians.
