Hello and welcome to NewsHour from the BBC World Service, coming to you live from London with me, Sean Lay.

The Kurdish authorities who run parts of northern Syria have joined condemnation of changes to the country's school curriculum.

Reports this week suggested Hayat Taria al-Sham, or HTS, the rebel group which caused the

Assad regime to collapse, was planning to remove the theory of evolution and the Ottoman

empire from classroom teaching. On a visit on Friday to meet Ahmed al-Shara, the country's interim

leader, German foreign minister Annalina Beirbok urged him not to Islamise the judicial

or education systems. According to the Syrian Kurdish News Agency, the Kurdish-run

Education Authority said the proposed change would weaken the unity of Syrians and create,

quote, the danger of raising an extremist generation. Well, Tobias Lindner, the German Federal Foreign Office Minister of State,

whose special coordinator for Syria was part of that European delegation

that visited Damascus on Friday.

Earlier, my colleague Paul Henley asked him first about their expectations of the country's new leaders.

We expect that a transitional phase, also the phase, how a constitution is being drafted,

needs to be as inclusive as possible.

So it needs to include all the Syrians, be it Kurds, be it Aloids, be it cruises, Christians,

you name it.

So it needs to include all religions, all ethnicities.

And it needs to respect fundamental religions, all ethnicities, and it needs to respect

fundamental human rights, especially women's and girls' rights. Is the room for cautious

optimism here? I mean, can we sound a note of sort of nervous celebration, the fact that

Syria hasn't yet fallen into chaos, that constructive talks like yours are happening,

and that there is hope for an inclusive Syrian society of the future?

...