European Union foreign ministers to discuss easing sanctions on Syria at end of month

(Patria) - European foreign ministers will meet at the end of January to discuss lifting sanctions on Syria, the EU's foreign policy chief said yesterday in Riyadh ahead of a meeting of senior Middle Eastern and Western diplomats and the new Syrian foreign minister.

Kaja Kallas, the EU's High Representative for Foreign Affairs, said the foreign ministers would meet in Brussels on January 27 in an attempt to decide how the 27-country bloc will ease sanctions on Syria, Reuters reported.

After thirteen years of civil war, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad was overthrown a month ago in a lightning offensive by rebel forces led by Islamists from the group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS). The group then established a transitional government in Damascus.

Any European decision to ease sanctions would be conditioned on the new Syrian authority's approach to governance, which must include "diverse groups" and women and be "without radicalization," Kallas said, without providing details.

"If we see that the development is going in the right direction, we are ready to take the next steps... If we see that it is not going in the right direction, then we can also return to this."

Sunday's conference, the first such meeting of Western and regional leaders since Assad's overthrow and hosted by Saudi Arabia, comes as Damascus calls on the West to lift sanctions to help international funds flow more freely. The United States, the United Kingdom, the EU, and others imposed sanctions on Syria after Assad suppressed pro-democracy protests in 2011 that escalated into civil war. But the new reality in Syria has been complicated by sanctions on HTS during its time as part of Al Qaeda.

Germany, which is leading the discussion on sanctions within the European Union, proposed on Sunday to allow relief for the Syrian population, but to maintain sanctions against Assad's allies who have "committed serious crimes" during the Syrian war.

"Syrians now need a quick dividend from the change of power, and we continue to help those in Syria who have nothing, as we have done all the years of the civil war," German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock told reporters in Riyadh.

The US issued a six-month exemption from its sanctions on Monday for transactions with governing institutions in Syria in an attempt to facilitate the flow of humanitarian aid and allow some energy transactions.

British Foreign Secretary David Lammy joined the talks in Riyadh along with ministers from Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, and Turkey, as well as the UN Special Envoy for Syria, Geir Pedersen.

The talks will focus on supporting the interim Syrian authorities, "including mechanisms for holding the Assad regime accountable for war crimes committed against the Syrian people," according to a statement from the British Foreign Office.