Syrian president postpones visit to Germany

Middle East

Syrian president postpones visit to Germany

Syria’s interim president was supposed to come to Berlin for two days. Nothing will come of this for now. Protests are still planned.

The Syrian interim president Ahmed al-Sharaa has briefly postponed his visit to Germany planned for Monday and Tuesday. A spokesman for the federal government confirmed this to the German Press Agency. The reason is the domestic political situation in Syria.

Al-Sharaa was actually supposed to meet Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, Federal Chancellor Friedrich Merz (CDU) and several federal ministers and business representatives on Tuesday. The main topics should include the return of Syrian refugees to their homeland and the reconstruction of the Arab country after almost 14 years of civil war.

Violence has increased again in Syria in recent days and new military confrontations have broken out. On Sunday, the government of interim President al-Sharaa said it agreed on a ceasefire with the Kurdish-led militias in the north. An “immediate and comprehensive ceasefire” applies “on all fronts” between the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and government troops, the state agency Sana quotes from the agreement. However, there was initially no confirmation or reaction from the SDF.

Despite the postponement of the visit, a large demonstration against al-Sharaa’s politics and the West’s attitude towards it is scheduled to take place in Berlin on Monday. “We will definitely see this through,” said the chairman of the Kurdish community in Germany, Ali Ertan Toprak, to the dpa in the evening.

The Kurdish community and the Alevi community, together with almost 30 other organizations, have called for the demonstration at the Brandenburg Gate at 4 p.m. Toprak said they expect more than 10,000 participants. He pointed out that the visit had just been postponed and that the invitation still stood. That’s why we will continue the demonstration. Kurds and Alevis accuse the Syrian government of violent repression of ethnic and religious minorities in Syria.

In the Arab country, long-time ruler Bashar al-Assad was overthrown by the HTS Islamist militia led by al-Sharaa at the end of 2024. Al-Sharaa was appointed interim president in January last year and has since been steering the country towards opening and rapprochement with the West. Since the upheaval, there have been several waves of violence against minorities in Syria.

The conflict with the Kurds in northeastern Syria is likely to continue to preoccupy al-Sharaa despite the ceasefire announced by Damascus. Even after both sides reached an agreement in March 2025, there were problems with implementation and open points of contention that ultimately erupted in new violence.

Merz had already invited al-Sharaa to Germany in November to talk to him about the reconstruction of the country, but above all about the repatriation of Syrian refugees. The federal government has started deporting Syrian criminals again, but so far there have only been three. The Union in particular is pushing for a large proportion of the more than 900,000 Syrian refugees in Germany to be repatriated.