XML Parsing Error: xml processing instruction not at start of external entity

hello,
i am trying to apply sitemap but i get this error
XML Parsing Error: xml processing instruction not at start of external entity
location: https://foru2.me/sitemap.xml
line 2, column1:<?xml version=”1.0″ encoding=”UTF-8″?><?xml-stylesheet type=”text/xsl” href=”https://foru2.me/wp-content/plugins/google-sitemap-generator/sitemap.xsl”?><!– sitemap-generator-url=”http://www.arnebrachhold.de” sitemap-generator-version=”4.0.9″ –>
^
i have read in other posts and articles that maybe it is due to blank whitespaces.
but where is it located in order to delete them?shouldn’t it be in the site root?
it isn’t.
any help is much appreciated,thank you