Over more than a decade, a driver for the German Embassy in Syria has kept the key to the representation in Damascus. According to the “Rheinische Post” (Friday edition), he handed it over to a delegation of diplomats who traveled to the country for the first time in twelve years, opened the property, and inspected the premises, as the newspaper reports, citing delegation sources. According to the accounts, everything in the embassy looked as it did when it was hastily left in 2012. Even a daily newspaper from back then was reportedly still on the table, covered in a thick layer of dust.
The German Embassy was closed twelve years ago in response to the brutal actions of the regime of Bashar al-Assad against the opposition. This week, German diplomats, led by the Middle East and North Africa representative of the Foreign Office, Tobias Tunkel, made a brief visit to Damascus.