No lifting of Syria sanctions until rights and unity are guaranteed: EU

An EU foreign ministers’ meeting in Brussels on Monday, which had Syria on the agenda, would not discuss expanding financial support to the country beyond that already provided by the EU through United Nations agencies, the EU’s new foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas, said.

“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 Reuters in an interview.

While the EU has in place a tough sanctions regime against Syria, the opposition group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham 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 continued.

“We need to discuss what more can we do. But as I say, it can’t come as a blank cheque,” she added.

“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.

“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.