EU foreign ministers to tackle Syria sanctions relief at end of month

EU ministers meet to discuss easing sanctions on Syria post-Assad's ouster, with relief conditional on inclusive governance.

European foreign ministers will meet at the end of January to discuss the lifting of sanctions on Syria, the EU foreign policy chief said on Sunday (January 12, 2025) in Riyadh ahead of a meeting of top Middle Eastern and Western diplomats and Syria’s new foreign minister.

Kaja Kallas, the EU foreign policy chief, said the foreign ministers would convene in Brussels on Jan. 27 in an effort to decide how the 27-nation bloc would relax sanctions on Syria.

After 13 years of civil war, Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad was ousted in a lightning offensive by insurgent forces led by the Islamist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) a month ago. The group has since set up a caretaker government in Damascus.

Any European decision to ease sanctions would be conditional on the new Syrian administration’s approach to governing, which must include “different groups” and women and “no radicalisation”, Ms. Kallas said, without elaborating.

“If we see the developments going to the right direction, we are ready to do the next steps...If we see that it’s not going to the right direction, then we can also move back on this.”

Sunday’s (January 12, 2025) conference, the first such meeting of Western and regional leaders hosted by regional heavyweight Saudi Arabia since Assad’s ouster, comes as Damascus urges the West to lift sanctions to help international funding flow more freely.

The U.S., Britain, the European Union and others imposed tough sanctions on Syria after a crackdown by Assad on pro-democracy protests in 2011 that spiralled into civil war. But the new reality in Syria has been complicated by sanctions on HTS - and some leaders - for its days as an al Qaeda affiliate.