Italy is among a number of EU countries seeking to oversee Syria’s transitional period post-Assad [Getty/file photo]
Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani is travelling to Syria on Friday to encourage the country’s transition following the ouster of President Bashar Assad by opposition rebels, and said Europe should review its sanctions on Damascus now that the political situation has changed.
Tajani presided on Thursday over a meeting in Rome of foreign ministry officials from five countries — Britain, France, Germany, Italy and the United States — and spoke earlier by telephone with his counterparts from Turkey and Saudi Arabia. The aim, he said, is to coordinate the various post-Assad initiatives, with Italy prepared to make proposals on private investments in health care for the Syrian population.
Going into the meeting with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and their European counterparts, Tajani said it was critical that all Syrians be recognised with equal rights. It was a reference to concerns about the rights of religious minorities and women under Syria’s new de facto authorities of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, or HTS, which was once linked to al-Qaeda.
“The first messages from Damascus have been positive. That’s why I’m going there tomorrow, to encourage this new phase that will help stabilize the international situation,” said Tajani.
Speaking to reporters, he said the European Union should discuss possible changes to the sanctions regime on Syria. “It’s an issue that should be discussed because Assad isn’t there anymore, it’s a new situation, and I think that the encouraging signals that are arriving should be further encouraged,” he said.
Syria has been under deeply isolating sanctions by the United States, the European Union and others for years as a result of Assad’s brutal response to peaceful anti-government protests in 2011 and spiraled into the deadly civil war.
HTS led a lightning insurgency that ousted Assad on December 8 and ended his family’s decades-long rule. From 2011 until Assad’s downfall, Syria’s uprising and civil war killed an estimated 500,000 people, and displaced millions more.
The US has gradually lifted some penalties since Assad fled to Russia where he sought political asylum. The Biden administration in December decided to drop a $10 million bounty it had offered for the capture of a Syrian rebel leader whose forces led the ouster of Assad last month.
