A Return Carried in Luggage

For years, Syria was absent. Not from the world's headlines, but from its meeting rooms — from the quiet corridors of foreign ministries, from the kind of conversations where countries actually build trust with one another. So, when I landed in Berlin in April 2026 as part of the first Executive Seminar for Syrian Diplomats, I was carrying with me something more than a professional agenda. I had, in a small way, also packed a return into my suitcase.

Germany made that return feel welcome, from the very first moment.
What I did not expect was how much the city itself would become part of the experience. Berlin wears its history openly — the Wall, Checkpoint Charlie and the German Bundestag where I met people who had once left Syria and were now elected German representatives. Walking along the Spree on a quiet April evening, watching the city move at its own unhurried pace, I felt something I had not quite anticipated: pride. Pride in how far Syrians have travelled, in every sense of the word, and gratitude that after the liberation of our country, I could be here — representing Syria, from within the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

We were nineteen Syrian diplomats, all from the Ministry, and somewhere between the baroque stillness of Sanssouci Palace, the roar of the Olympiastadion cheering for Hertha BSC and the long, shared dinners after days filled with meetings, we became something more than colleagues. We became alumni — a network forged not just professionally but through our human connections, by people who had lived the same moment in history together and would carry it forward in different directions. That, quietly, may be the most lasting thing I take with me from Berlin.

The programme gave us access that I still find remarkable. In Brussels, sitting across from EU officials who manage Syria's file directly, I was struck not just by their knowledge but by their genuine investment in Syria's success. The EU's engagement with Syria's transition — its seriousness, its resources, its willingness to build a real partnership — is something every Syrian should know about and feel encouraged by. We are not navigating this alone.

At a working dinner, I sat across from a German colleague from the Foreign Office's Crisis Prevention division. When he began speaking about Syria — about the revolution, about what Syrians had lived through and fought for — something shifted in the room, or perhaps just in me. Here was a German official speaking about my country's pain and hope with a fluency that felt almost impossible to place. Not analytical distance. Not diplomatic caution. Something closer to genuinely belonging to the story. I had not expected to feel understood in that way, in that room, so far from home.

And then there was Hohenschönhausen. Standing inside the former Stasi prison, in the silence of cells built to make people feel forgotten, I thought about the universal story of those who risk everything for freedom — those who once tried to escape across the Wall, and so many others whose stories felt so close to home. The weight of that place was real. So was what followed: a deeper appreciation for freedom, and for why it must be protected through memory, institutions and honest diplomacy.

I am about to take up my first international post. I will bring with me the tools, the knowledge and above all the network — nineteen colleagues, and a wider circle of Germans and Europeans who looked at Syria and chose engagement over distance. My warmest thanks go to Mr Nunn, Lorena, Carla and Hannah, whose care made every moment feel genuinely human.

To the Diplomacy by Networking team: you didn't just organise a seminar. You opened a door — and I am walking through it.

Ahmed Kara Ali