Günter Meyer

In February 2016 Meyer presented his view on plans to depose Assad as early as 2001. In 2006 news had been leaked, that the regime should be "destabilized" by instigating ethnic antagonism. The strategy of supplying weapons the so-called temperate rebel opposition via Libya and Turkey had faltered, because, according to Meyer, those rebels had allied themselves with extremist forces. Turkey was supporting IS willing to do everything possible to prevent the emergence of a Kurdish state. Deposing Assad would cause chaos in Syria, to the sole advantage of extremists. Meyer saw the politics of Russia towards Syria as constructive, he ruled out the possibility of Russia's intentionally intensifying immigration towards Europe. The target of the Russian government was getting back control of part of the country.

In a public debate in June 2016 Meyer expressed doubts about a smooth transition of power in case the Assad regime was dissolved. Two military groups, Al-Nusra and IS, could not have a share in power, also the remaining militias had a salafist or radically islamistic outlook, often hostile against each other, only united temporarily by their common enmity towards Assad.

In 2014 he was awarded the Jere L. Bacharach Service Award by the Middle East Studies Association of North America (MESA). Meyer was the first European honoured with this award. The award certificate mentioned Meyer's tireless efforts to improve communication and interaction between previously separated, different areas of European scholarship: "This award honors his vision and skill in establishing new institutional networks to the benefit of scholars around the world."

As the chairman of the World Congress of Middle Eastern Studies, Meyer was also in charge of the world congresses in Amman/Jordan, in Barcelona, and in Ankara in August 2014, and is in charge of the congress in Sevilla in 2018.

As early as 2012 Meyer attracted attention putting forward his view on the external roots of the conflicts within Syria. He saw a massive and abusive outside interference into inner-Syrian affairs. Western powers seemed to be mainly concerned with extinguishing the "Iran-Hezbolla axis". According to Meyer, thousands of mujaheddin had been flown in, because the CIA was intending to initiate a civil war to weaken Syria. The media were ignoring the fact, Meyer said, that the majority of the population was still preferring Assad as head of government.

In 2010 the executive board of WOCMES appointed Meyer again for president. In 2018 he was reelected unanimously for a fifth term of office, until 2022.

He headed the first World Congress on Studies of the Middle East in 2002 (WOCMES) in Mainz. The congress attracted about 2.100 scientists from 68 countries, and 126 journalists from all parts of the world.

Since the mid-1990s he started an intense networking activity organizing the cooperation of Institutes of Oriental studies and orientalists on a national, European and global level.

Meyer studied Geography and English Literature from 1968 to 1973 at the University of Erlangen–Nuremberg and the New University of Ulster in Northern Ireland. Back in Erlangen, he took his state exams for higher secondary education in 1973, completed his doctorate in Geography in 1976 and qualified as a university lecturer in 1983 with his post-doctoral thesis and other writings in social geographic studies on developments in rural and nomadic areas. He was appointed Professor in Erlangen. In 1993 he changed to the University of Mainz.

Günter Meyer (born 25 August 1946) is a German Geographer and Orientalist. He is chairman of the World Congress for Middle Eastern Studies (WOCMES) and director of the Center for Research on the Arab World (CERAW) at the University of Mainz. Meyer focuses mainly on the Political Geography of the Arab World, and the economic as well as urban development in the Middle East, especially in Egypt, Syria, Yemen and the UAE, but also in Germany. He became known to a wider German-speaking audience through more than 1100 interviews on the Iraq War, the Syrian Civil War and on the Libyan Civil War 2011 and 2014.