BRUSSELS: France is floating a proposal that the European Union ease an arms embargo for Syrian rebels but delay acting on the decision to intensify pressure on Damascus to negotiate an end to Syria’s civil war, a French diplomat said yesterday.
Sweden, Austria and some other EU member states are resisting efforts by France and Britain to modify the ban to strengthen rebels fighting Syrian President Bashar Al Assad.
The embargo is part of a package of EU sanctions on Syria that expires on June 1. EU foreign ministers will discuss the issue on May 27 and it could come up at an EU summit on May 22.
The French diplomat’s suggestion that the arms embargo could be linked to the outcome of a new initiative from the US and Russia for a diplomatic solution in Syria appears designed to win support for the French-British proposal.
It would effectively introduce a brake on the lifting of the arms embargo, allowing for it to take effect only if the proposed peace conference in Geneva next month fails.
“Strengthening the hand of the opposition is not contradictory to holding talks,” the French diplomat said, briefing reporters on condition he was not further identified.
“There are always questions about the time frame. We could take a decision at the end of May — if we take a decision — with its implementation deferred depending on what happens or what doesn’t happen in Geneva,” he said.
“We’ve always said that the goal was a political solution, but (that) a political solution depended to a large degree on what happened on the ground,” the diplomat said.
The US-Russian peace drive is based on a deal announced in Geneva in June 2012 for the creation of a transitional Syrian government “with full executive authority by mutual consent”.
That wording left unresolved the question of any future role for Assad and the agreement was never implemented.
Reuters
