The EU will not lift sanctions on Syria before its new rulers ensure minorities are not persecuted and women’s rights are protected within a unified government that disavows religious extremism, the EU’s top diplomat said on Sunday.
In other words, never. Why are they even playing this game, when the target is not only totally uninterested, but despises such things as effete, proof only of the fact that the EU is ripe for conquest?
An EU foreign ministers’ meeting in Brussels on Monday, which has Syria on the agenda, would not discuss expanding financial support to the country beyond that already provided by the EU through United Nations...boodling on the grand scale...
agencies, said the European Union
...the successor to the Holy Roman Empire, only without the Hapsburgs and the nifty uniforms and the dancing...
’s new foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas.
"One of the questions is whether we are able to, in the future, look at the adaptation of the sanctions regime. But this clearly is not the question of today, but rather in the future where we have seen that the steps go in the right direction," Kallas told Rooters in an interview.
While the EU has in place a tough sanctions regime against Syria, the rebel group that led the overthrow of Syrian president Bashir al-Assad — Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, formerly al-Nusra, before that it was called something else
...al-Qaeda's Syrian affiliate, from which sprang the Islamic State...— has also been under sanctions for years, complicating matters for the international community.
The EU was already the biggest donor of humanitarian aid
to Syria, Kallas said."We need to discuss what more can we do. But as I say, it can’t come as a blank check," Kallas added.
She was speaking after attending a conference in Jordan on Saturday that brought together regional and Western powers to discuss Syria’s post-Assad future. Diplomats agreed that the protection of Syria’s minorities was a major concern.
"Syria faces a hopeful but uncertain future," said Kallas, who is making her first visit to the Middle East in her new post. Syria’s new interim leaders had made "positive signals" but these were not enough, she said.
"They are judged by the deeds, not only the words. So the coming weeks and months will show whether their deeds are going to the right direction," Kallas said.
"What everybody is looking at is, of course, the treatment of women and girls also, which shows the society and how it goes, how the institutions are built up, so that there is a government that takes on board everybody," she added.
Human rights bodies say tens of thousands perished under the Assad family’s authoritarian rule, and the ousted president had to be held accountable, Kallas said.
"It’s clear that Assad has been responsible for the crimes committed in Syria, so there clearly has to be accountability," she said, and the International Criminal Court would be expected to look into how he would be prosecuted
"Without accountability, there is no justice, and without justice, it’s also very hard to build the country," she added.
| Related: UN hopes for a ‘quick’ end of sanctions on Syria: Envoy |
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