RIYADH: German ambassador Dieter Lamle said he loved Saudi Arabia from the very beginning, as he bid farewell at the end of his two-year tenure.
The ambassador landed in the Kingdom on July 29, 2021, and the first thing he could remember from his arrival was the scorching summer sun.
“It was really the toughest time to arrive, and I remember people telling me ‘You must really love Saudi Arabia to arrive at the end of July’. And I did, I loved Saudi Arabia, since the beginning,” Lamle said.
The ambassador reflected on the warm welcomes he received from people in Saudi Arabia and members of the Foreign Ministry.
“There were a lot of surprising elements. I was deeply impressed from the very first moment by the Saudi hospitality, this was really incredible,” he said.
“People didn’t know me and they invited me into their house. We had wonderful dinners together, and later in the stage they invited me to their farms, to their desert camps.”
“Here, people are willing to talk to you, willing to listen and this is until today the most exciting aspect of living here.”
The ambassador highlighted the many places had visited, including Jeddah Dammam, Jazan, Alula, and Hofuf. He remembers the Saudi professors who spoke German with him on a visit to a university in Hofuf.
Lamle said Vision 2030 “is a very good project, very ambitious.”
“Very good German companies like to include our knowledge and also our human expertise in the implementation of 2030,” he said. “It is the interest of Germany that Vision 2030 is a success.
“When I arrived two years ago the perception in Germany of Saudi Arabia was not good.
“Because of a lack of knowledge, lack of information, lack of perception, and I said, ‘this I have to change.’ I have to make it clear to Germany that this country is changing.
“We are witnesses of history (and a) national reform process that (is) really incredible and I can’t find it in any other country of the world.”
Lamle made efforts to increase the number of exchange of visits between the countries.
“The idea was to change the image. To tell my people to come, come watch. Look and see and this happened,” he said.
The ambassador highlighted the progress made in the last nine months, including the visit by Olaf Scholz, the German Chancellor, in Sept. 2022.
He highlighted some of his most memorable events hosted in the embassy including cultural events that made the German residency known as a cultural hub for emerging talents.
“This residence was always an open house and it was also an open house for culture for cultural events, for young emerging artists where we gave the platform, they were playing music here, they were having an exhibition of paintings here just to give the platform to show themselves to gain experience,” he said.
One of these fondest memories in the embassy was hosting music for friends. The ambassador said that he didn’t invite professionals but rather asked his guests to play some of their instruments.
“The guests were not professionals but this was so nice and people started singing Arabic songs and this was really one of my favorite events,” he said.
“Cultural diplomacy is a soft diplomacy and is at least as important as the hard policy.”
The ambassador said he hoped to leave a legacy of better relations between governments and businesses.
In the near future, he said he wanted to see wider cooperation on climate policy and renewable energy, “the two biggest areas where we are going to work closely together.”
His advice to his replacement is “be happy to be in Saudi Arabia and be happy with the Saudi hospitality.”
Lamle will become ambassador to Argentina in mid-August. The German embassy held a farewell reception on Thursday.
