of everything democratic socialists claim to stand for." In September 2015, amid the European migrant crisis, Gabriel visited the Zaatari refugee camp in Jordan to learn more about the plight of Syrians fleeing the violence in the ongoing Syrian civil war that erupted in 2011. Gabriel publicly urged Saudi Arabia to stop supporting religious radicals, amid growing concern among about the country's funding of Wahhabi mosques in Germany which are accused of breeding dangerous Islamists. In January 2016, Gabriel participated in the first joint cabinet meeting of the governments of Germany and Turkey in Berlin. Later that year, he called any accession of Turkey to the European Union in the near term an "illusion." After the G7 summit in 2017, Gabriel stated that the United States, with Donald Trump as president, has "weakened" the West and that the balance of power has now shifted. The remark comes days after Merkel stated, in an apparent policy shift, that "Europeans must really take our fate into our own hands". In June 2017, Gabriel criticized the draft of new U.S. sanctions against Russia that target EU–Russia energy projects, including Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline. In a joint statement Gabriel and Austria's Chancellor Christian Kern said that "Europe's energy supply is a matter for Europe, and not for the United States of America." They also said: "To threaten companies from Germany, Austria and other European states with penalties on the U.S. market if they participate in natural gas projects such as Nord Stream 2 with Russia or finance them introduces a completely new and very negative quality into European-American relations." Gabriel is a supporter of the Campaign for the Establishment of a United Nations Parliamentary Assembly, an organisation which campaigns for democratic reformation of the United Nations, and the creation of a more accountable international political system. He argued the U.N. needed to be made "more effective, transparent, and democratic through a reform of its structures and decision-making procedures". In February 2018, Gabriel accused Russia and China of trying to "undermine" the liberal Western world order. He said that "Nobody should attempt to divide the European Union: not Russia, not China and also not the United States." In September 2018, Gabriel said that "Ukrainians, Belarusians and Russians experienced unfathomable suffering in World War II. We have a responsibility there." In March 2018, after his departure as German foreign minister, Gabriel published an opinion piece