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Contradicting Trump, Merkel says Daesh not defeated

February 08, 2019
German Chancellor Angela Merkel receives honorary citizenship in her home town Templin from Templin mayor Detlef Tabbert, in Templin, Germany, on Friday. — Reuters
German Chancellor Angela Merkel receives honorary citizenship in her home town Templin from Templin mayor Detlef Tabbert, in Templin, Germany, on Friday. — Reuters

BERLIN — The Daesh (so-called IS) group is far from defeated, and instead is morphing into an asymmetrical warfare force after the militant group lost almost all of the territory it once controlled in Syria, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Friday.

Merkel's remarks at the inauguration of the Berlin headquarters of Germany's foreign intelligence agency BND contradicted statements by US President Donald Trump that the group has been defeated.

"The so-called Islamic State has been luckily driven out of its territory but this unfortunately doesn't mean that Islamic State has disappeared," Merkel said. "It is transforming into an asymmetrical warfare force. And this, of course, is a threat."

The conservative chancellor said monitoring events in Syria was one of the BND's top priorities, which also include tracking cyber threats and fake news designed to influence democratic elections.

Trump said on Wednesday that he expected a formal announcement as early as next week that the coalition fighting the militants has reclaimed all of the territory it previously held. In December he tweeted that the group has been "defeated."

Trump wants to withdraw US troops from Syria by the end of April, a plan that has alarmed European allies who fear Islamic State would resurface in Syria in the absence of a credible peace plan to end the country's civil war.

"We remain a long way from peace in Syria," said Merkel, adored by many of the more than 550,000 Syrians who have found refuge in Germany after she decided in 2015 to open the country's borders to almost a million asylum seekers.

The BND's new headquarters will house the agency's 4,000 workers who will have to move from its current location near Munich.

The massive structure in the German capital's central Mitte district took more than 10 years to complete and cost more than 1.4 billion euros, German media reported. The building sits on 10 hectares of land and has some 260,000 sqm of office space.

Meanwhile a new poll suggests that nearly 85 percent of Germans have a negative or very negative view of US-German relations, and most want to put more distance between the traditionally close transAltantic allies.

Just over 40 percent of those polled view China as a better partner for Germany than the United States, the survey of around 5,000 people, conducted by Atlantik-Bruecke and the Civey institute in poll in November and December, showed.

Ties between the United States and Germany, Europe's largest economy, have been strained since the 2016 election of US President Trump, who has criticized Germany repeatedly for its trade practices, defense spending and its participation in the Russian-led Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline

Germany has sought to maintain friendly ties with the United States, but senior leaders speak publicly about an erosion of trust after Washington's withdrawal from the Paris climate accord, a 2015 nuclear accord with Iran, and most recently, the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF).

Michael Werz, senior fellow at the US-based Center for American Progress and a member of the executive board of the Atlantik-Bruecke, urged Germans not to let concerns about Trump spiral into anti-American resentment.

Burkhard Schwenker, deputy chairman of the Atlantik-Bruecke, said the poll showed the need to redouble efforts to expand dialogue between the two allies at all levels.

A total of 57.6 percent of those polled want to see more distance between Berlin and Washington, and 42.3 percent consider China a better partner.

About a third of those polled said they viewed right-wing populism and protectionism as the most dangerous global crises, compared to only 1.9 percent worried about Russia, and 2.2 percent who feared the growing influence of China. — Reuters


February 08, 2019
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