The foreign ministers of Germany and France said they wanted to forge a new relationship with Syria and urged a peaceful transition as they met its de facto leader Ahmed al-Sharaa in Damascus on Friday on behalf of the European Union. Germany's Annalena Baerbock and France's Jean-Noel Barrot are the first ministers from the EU to visit Syria since rebels seized control of Damascus on Dec. 8 and forced President Bashar al-Assad to flee after more than 13 years of civil war, ending his family's decades-long rule. The French and German ministers met Sharaa in the Damascus People's Palace, but so far no details of their talks have been made public.
Barrot similarly expressed his hope for a "sovereign and safe" Syria that would leave no room for terrorism, chemical weapons or malign foreign actors, during a meeting with representatives from Syrian civil society organisations.
Germany and France plan to offer their technical help and advice to Syria as the country drafts a new constitution, Barrot told journalists, saying that hope for the country's democratic transition was "fragile but real".
He called for a political solution for Kurdish fighters in Syria to be integrated into the Syrian state, adding that a permanent ceasefire must be achieved, but he did not respond when asked when the EU could lift sanctions on Syria.
Barrot also visited the French embassy, which has been closed since 2012, where he said France would work towards re-establishing diplomatic representation in line with political and security conditions, diplomatic sources said.
As part of their visit, the ministers took a tour of Syria's most notorious prison, the vast Sednaya complex.
"Now it's up to the international community to help to bring justice to the people who have suffered here in this prison of hell," Baerbock said. (Reporting by Miranda Murray in Berlin, Riham Alkousaa in Damascus, and John Irish, Tassilo Hummels, Dominique Vidalon, Elizabeth Pineau, Ingrid Melander in Paris; Editing by Angus MacSwan and Alison Willia