EU foreign ministers to tackle Syria sanctions relief at end of month

RIYADH: European foreign ministers will meet at the end of January to discuss the lifting of sanctions on Syria, the EU foreign policy chief said on Sunday in Riyadh ahead of a meeting of top Middle Eastern and Western diplomats and Syria’s new foreign minister.

Kaja Kallas, the EU foreign policy chief, said the foreign ministers would convene in Brussels on Jan 27 in an effort to decide how the 27-nation bloc would relax sanctions on Syria.

After 13 years of civil war, Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad was ousted in a lightning offensive by insurgent forces led by the Islamist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) a month ago. The group has since set up a caretaker government in Damascus.

Any European decision to ease sanctions would be conditional on the new Syrian administration’s approach to governing, which must include “different groups” and women and “no radicalisation”, Kallas said, without elaborating.

“If we see the developments going to the right direction, we are ready to do the next steps…If we see that it’s not going to the right direction, then we can also move back on this,” she said.

Sunday’s conference, the first such meeting of Western and regional leaders hosted by regional heavyweight Saudi Arabia since Assad’s ouster, comes as Damascus urges the West to lift sanctions to help international funding flow more freely.

In a press conference held after wrapping up the conference, Saudi foreign minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud said he stressed “lifting the unilateral and UN sanctions imposed on Syria as continuing … sanctions will hinder the aspirations of the Syrian people to achieve development.”

The US, Britain, the EU and others imposed tough sanctions on Syria after a crackdown by Assad on pro-democracy protests in 2011 that spiralled into civil war. But, the new reality in Syria has been complicated by sanctions on HTS – and some leaders – for its days as an al Qaeda affiliate.

Germany, which is leading the EU’s discussion on sanctions, on Sunday proposed allowing relief for the Syrian population, but retaining sanctions on Assad allies who “committed serious crimes” during Syria’s war.

“Syrians now need a quick dividend from the transition of power, and we continue to help those in Syria who have nothing, as we have done all the years of civil war,” German foreign minister Annalena Baerbock told reporters in Riyadh.

The US on Monday issued a six-month exemption of its sanctions for transactions with governing institutions in Syria to try to ease the flow of humanitarian assistance and allow some energy transactions.

British foreign minister David Lammy joined the Riyadh talks along with ministers from Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the UAE, Qatar, Bahrain, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey, as well as the UN special envoy for Syria, Geir Pedersen.

Discussions would focus on support for the interim Syrian authorities, “including mechanisms to hold the Assad regime to account for the war crimes they perpetrated against the Syrian people,” the UK foreign office said in a statement.