German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said after meeting Syria's interim leaders on Thursday that they must bring under control and hold accountable groups behind sectarian massacres committed this month on the Syrian coast.
"It is imperative that extremist groups in their ranks are brought under control and those responsible for crimes are held accountable," she said after talks in Damascus with interim president Ahmed al-Sharaa and other officials.
"Any attempt at renewed escalation must be prevented."
Her trip came weeks after sectarian massacres claimed more than 1,500 lives on Syria's Mediterranean coast -- the heartland of the Alawite minority of ousted president Bashar al-Assad.
Baerbock described the situation in Syria as "particularly volatile" and said the country was "on a knife edge" as it seeks stability after years of civil war.
She said numerous actors inside and outside the country were trying "to torpedo this peaceful political process".
Baerbock, who on Thursday re-opened Germany's long-shuttered embassy in Damascus, said that "as Europeans, we will not support a resurgence of Islamist structures".
She called for a power-sharing system where all groups, including Druze, Alawites, Christians and others, "also feel part of a new, shared Syria".
The participation of women would be "a key indicator of this, as they make up 50 percent of the population", she said.
"Our common goal is that Syria never falls back into civil war."
Baerbock said badly needed private investment for the war-battered country "will only come when a stable, functioning state guarantees that there will never be violence and chaos again, and that people will never have to flee again".
With AFP
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