BERLIN: Discord broke out in German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s ruling coalition Sunday, after the United States urged the country to send ground troops to Syria as Washington looks to withdraw from the region.
“We want ground troops from Germany to partly replace our soldiers” in the area as part of the anti-Daesh coalition, US special representative on Syria James Jeffrey had told German media including Die Welt newspaper.
Jeffrey, who was visiting Berlin for Syria talks, added that he expects an answer this month.
Last year US President Donald Trump declared victory against Daesh and ordered the withdrawal of all 2,000 American troops from Syria.
A small number have remained in northeastern Syria, an area not controlled by the regime of President Bashar Assad, and Washington is pushing for increased military support from other members of the international coalition against Daesh.
“We are looking for volunteers who want to take part here and among other coalition partners,” Jeffrey said.
A clear rejection of the American request came from Merkel’s junior coalition partners, the Social Democrats (SPD).
“There will be no German ground troops in Syria with us,” tweeted a member of the interim SPD leadership, Thorsten Schaefer-Guembel.
“I don’t see people wanting that among our coalition partners” in Merkel’s center-right CDU, he added.
But deputy conservative parliamentary leader Johann Wadephul told news agency DPA that Germany should “not reflexively reject” the US call for troops.
“Our security, not the Americans’, is being decided in this region,” added Wadephul, seen as a candidate to succeed Ursula von der Leyen as defense minister if she is confirmed as European Commission chief.
Syria’s war has killed more than 370,000 people and displaced millions since it started in 2011 with a brutal crackdown on anti-government protests.
Washington has two goals in northeastern Syria: to support the US-backed Kurdish forces that expelled Daesh from northern Syria as they are increasingly threatened by Turkey, and to prevent a potential Daesh resurgence in the war-torn country.
The US is hoping Europe will help, pressuring Britain, France and now Germany, which has so far deployed surveillance aircraft and other non-combat military support in Syria.
However Germany’s history makes military spending and foreign adventures controversial.
Berlin sent soldiers to fight abroad for the first time since World War II in 1994, and much of the political spectrum and the public remains suspicious of such deployments.
As well as the SPD, the ecologist Greens, liberal Free Democrats and Left party all urged Merkel to reject the US request for troops.
The US appeal comes after Trump has repeatedly urged Berlin to increase its defense spending, last month calling Germany “delinquent” over its contributions to NATO’s budget.
But such criticisms have more often hardened resistance to forking out more on the military rather than loosening the country’s purse strings.
Former Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder told business newspaper Handelsblatt on Saturday that Trump wanted “vassals” rather than allies.
“I’d have liked the federal government to tell him once or twice that it’s none of his business” how much Germany spends on defense, Schroeder said.
“This isn’t a banana republic here!“
US call for Syria troops divides German coalition
US call for Syria troops divides German coalition
- The US wants ground troops from Germany to partly replace their soldiers
- A clear rejection of the American request came from Merkel’s junior coalition partners
India hosts global leaders, tech moguls at AI Impact Summit
- 20 heads of state scheduled to attend event which runs until Feb. 20
- Summit expected to speed up adoption of AI in India’s governance, expert says
NEW DELHI: A global artificial intelligence summit opened in New Delhi on Monday, with representatives of more than 60 countries scheduled to discuss the use and regulation of AI with the industry’s leaders and investors.
The India AI Impact Summit 2026 is hosted by the Indian government’s IndiaAI Mission — an initiative worth in excess of $1 billion and launched by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology in 2024 to develop the AI ecosystem in the country.
After five days of sessions and an accompanying exhibition of 300 companies at Bharat Mandapam — the venue of the 2023 G20 summit — participating leaders are expected to sign a declaration which, according to the organizer, will outline a “shared road map for global AI governance and collaboration.”
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who will attend the summit on Friday with French President Emmanuel Macron, said on X it was a “matter of great pride for us that people from around the world are coming to India” for the event, which is evidence that the country is “rapidly advancing in the fields of science and technology and is making a significant contribution to global development.”
Among the 20 heads of state that the Indian Ministry of External Affairs has announced as scheduled to attend are Macron, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, Finnish Prime Minister Petteri Orpo, and Sheikh Khaled bin Mohamed bin Zayed Al-Nahyan, Abu Dhabi’s crown prince.
Also expected are tech moguls such as OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Google’s chief Sundar Pichai.
The summit will give India, the world’s most populous country, a platform to try to steer cooperation and AI regulation between the West and the Global South, and to present to the global audience its own technological development.
“India is leveraging its position as a bridge between emerging and developed economies to bring together not just country leaders and technologists, but also delegates, policy analysts, media, and others … to explore the facets of AI, multilateral collaborations, and the direction that large-scale development of AI should take,” said Anwesha Sen, assistant program manager for technology and policy at Takshashila Institution.
“India is trying to do three things through the AI Impact Summit. One, India is advocating for sovereign AI and the development of inclusive, population-scale solutions. Two, establishing international collaborations that prioritize AI diffusion in sectors like healthcare and agriculture. And three, showcasing how Indian startups and organizations are using frameworks such as that of digital public infrastructure as a model to bridge the two.”
It is the fourth such gathering dedicated to the development of AI. The first one was held in the UK in 2023, a year after the debut of ChatGPT; the 2024 meeting in South Korea; and last year’s event took place in France.
The summit is likely to help the Indian government in speeding up the adoption of AI, according to Nikhil Pahwa, digital rights activist and founder of MediaNama, a mobile and digital news portal, who likened it to the Digital India initiative launched in 2015 to provide digital government services.
“A summit like this, with this much bandwidth allocated to it by the government, even if the agenda is flat, ends up making AI a priority focus for ministries and state governments,” Pahwa told Arab News.
“It encourages diffusion of AI execution-specific thinking and ends up increasing adoption of AI in governance and by both central and state-level ministries. That reduces time for adoption of AI.
“We saw this play out with the government’s Digital India focus: it increased digitization and the adoption of digital technology. The agenda and India’s role in AI globally is less important than speeding up adoption.”
