The EU said on Monday it had initiated contact with the new Syrian authorities, hinting the bloc could lift the decade-long sanctions on Syria if Russian and Iranian influences in the country were removed.
After a meeting of EU foreign ministers in Brussels on Monday, EU Foreign Minister Kaja Kallas hinted that the bloc’s relationship with Syria depends on the actions undertaken by the new regime.
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“For us, it’s not only the words, but we want to see the deeds,” Kallas told reporters after the meeting, according to the Washington Post.
Meanwhile, French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot said that the new regime needs to meet certain prerequisites before the bloc could consider lifting sanctions that have been in place since 2011 and sending aid.
Barrot said the preconditions, agreed by the EU ministers, include but are not limited to “a political transition that allows all Syrian minority groups to be represented, the respect of human rights, the rights of women in Syria [and] the rejection of terrorism and extremism.”
In 2011, the EU began to freeze assets and impose travel bans on Syrian officials in response to the Assad regime’s violent crackdown on civilian protests that escalated into the Syrian Civil War. Moscow began its military intervention to aid the Assad regime in 2015 in exchange for energy and other interests in the country.
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Since 2017, Russia has maintained a permanent military presence in its two main military bases in Syria – the Khmeimim Air Base near Lakatia and the Tartus Naval Base. The latter is Russia’s only Mediterranean port to support its Middle Eastern and African operations.
Kallas said the closure of Russia’s Syrian bases would be on the agenda in forthcoming discussions with Syria’s provisional government set up by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the main rebel group that ousted the Moscow-backed Assad regime on Dec. 8.
The provisional government is set to rule until March, though it is unclear how the power transition will take place thereafter.
Before the ministerial meeting, Kallas said she had instructed a senior EU diplomat to initiate contact with HTS.
Following the meeting, Kallas also said, “Russia and Iran are not your friends” in a message directed at the new Syrian regime.
“They left Assad’s regime, and that is a very clear message showing that their hands are full elsewhere and they are weakened,” she added.
Kallas said the request for the removal of Russia’s military presence in Syria was also supported by different EU ministers following the meeting.
Kallas said “many foreign ministers” agreed that Moscow’s military presence is “a base where activities are carried out with regard to Africa and the southern neighbors,” adding that it “raises concerns regarding European security.”
Dutch Foreign Minister Caspar Veldkamp also told reporters that “regarding the Russian military bases in Syria, we want the Russians out.”
Recent reports, based on comments from an HTS political bureau official, indicate that Moscow is in touch with the rebels and has negotiated safe passages for its troops in Syria in coordination with them.
The official added that Russia was not evacuating its Khmeimim Air Base but acknowledged that Moscow has been pulling some troops out of the country by military transport planes.
However, Obeida Arnaout, the press secretary of Syria’s transitional government, said Tuesday that Moscow should “reconsider” its military presence in Syria, though he also suggested that the new regime would consider working with Moscow if it severed ties with the deposed regime.
The Kremlin should “come forward with initiatives to the new administration to show that it is not hostile to the Syrian people and that the era of the Assad regime is finally over,” Arnaout said, as quoted in Euronews.
Russian state media previously said that the Kremlin had granted former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and his family asylum in Moscow on “humanitarian grounds.”
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