On 10 March, the NYU Berlin community will consider the war in Syria and how it involves multiple conflicts.
Syria has been in the news ever since the uprising against President Assad’s government in 2011 and since then deteriorated into a battlefield with multiple warring parties, in which regional and even global conflicts are fought out. The appearance of IS (Islamic State) on the scene brought a new dimension to the conflict and the media coverage. Yet while the global public has become used to reports of atrocities committed in Syria, it at the same rate appears to lose the overview and understanding of the multiple conflicts.
For this lunchtime seminar Dr. Carsten Wieland, a diplomat with the German Foreign Office, and formerly an academic and journalist, will provide a unique insight as somebody who is closely involved in the United Nation’s attempts to bring the conflict to an end. In 2014, Wieland was political advisor to the Joint Special Envoy of the UN and the Arab League for Syria, Lakhdar Brahimi, and followed the Syria negotiations in Geneva. As an academic, Wieland has published widely on Syria’s recent history.