In Germany, Merkel was criticized for shaking hands with Putin and Erdogan

German opposition politicians criticized the German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who held the hands of Russian President Vladimir Putin and Turkish leader Recep Erdogan during the four-sided summit in Istanbul.
On her Twitter page, the Vice-Chairman of the Federal Assembly of Hamburg from the Left Party, Kansu Ozdemir, wrote that the Chancellor “should not lay a carpet for a dictator” and squeeze his “bloody hand”. “I feel bad about this,” she noted. About whom exactly there is a speech, Ozdemir did not specify.
The representative of the Free Democratic Party of Germany (FDP) in the Bundestag, Mikhail Türer, commenting on the photo to Bild magazine, said that Merkel had "lost the internal and foreign policy compass." “The picture speaks more than a thousand words,” he noted. According to him, "demonstration of proximity to autocrats definitely should not be."

The summit in Istanbul on Syria, which was attended by Merkel, Putin, Erdogan and French President Emmanuelle Macron was held on Saturday, October 27th. According to the results of the meeting, the participants spoke in favor of forming a constitutional committee of Syria, which will be engaged in the reform of the Constitution of the Syrian Arab Republic and the preparation of elections. The leaders of France, Germany, Turkey and Russia stated that it could be created before the end of 2018, and it will start working from 2019. Putin noted that in order for the committee to work effectively it is necessary for its legitimacy to be recognized by all parties to the conflict in Syria and respected.

At the same time, there are those who did not see anything reprehensible in the photo. Adam Traczyk, a Polish political analyst, said that she is completely ordinary for such meetings. Angela Merkel herself said earlier about serious progress in creating a demilitarized zone in Idlib and positively described the summit.