Karner and Faeser cancel trip to Syria due to terror warning!

Karner and Faeser cancel trip to Syria due to terror warning!

Interior Minister Gerhard Karner (ÖVP) canceled his trip to Syria due to specific terror warnings. This was announced by the Interior Ministry. Karner was in Amman together with the German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser (SPD), from where the planned onward journey to Damascus should have taken place. The main goal of the trip was to discuss security issues and the repatriation of Syrian refugees.

The decision to cancel, which was made jointly by Karner and Faeser, was considered necessary because the security situation was considered unacceptable. The first indications of a possible threat appeared late on Wednesday evening. A spokesman for the Federal Ministry of the Interior confirmed that the threat may have affected the delegation and that the highest security precautions were planned for the trip, which was not publicly announced.

Planned conversations and returns

The main topics of the planned talks were security issues and prospects for the return of Syrian refugees. Karner emphasized that they wanted to continue to enable returns to Syria in order to achieve more stability in the region. According to APA, around 280,000 Syrians have returned to their homeland since the fall of the Assad regime. There are currently around 105,000 Syrians living in Austria and over 2,400 de-identification procedures have been initiated. Family reunification was recently paused and shows the tense conditions in refugee policy.

The security situation in Syria remains fragile, particularly in the west of the country, where supporters of the deposed regime are fighting against new government troops. Nearly 1,000 civilians were reportedly killed there. Against this background, the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (Bamf) does not make a decision on asylum applications from people from Syria. Germany and Austria are also working to return difficult cases, such as serious criminals, to Syria as quickly as possible.

The situation of the Syrian refugees

The pressure on refugees like Ibrahim, who fled Azaz, Syria with his family, to return is immense. In Athens he lives in a small apartment and sees no future for himself or his children. He has to fight for survival because there is no government support for refugees in Greece. There is no social support whatsoever and the economic situation is tense. Smugglers demand large sums of money to escape from Greece to Northern Europe, which is unaffordable for many families.

Ibrahim follows the news about the war in his homeland and currently sees no possibility of returning. In his view, large countries such as Russia, America and Germany should contribute more to ending the conflict in Syria. Meanwhile, refugees from Syria have the right to remain in Greece, but they do not have the same rights as those from other countries.

The cancellation of Karner and Faeser's trip reflects the complex and dangerous situation in which both politicians and the refugees concerned have to act as the situation in Syria continues to worsen.

The developments highlight the challenges countries face in resolving the refugee crisis and stabilizing the region.