LUXEMBOURG/MOSCOW: The European Union is set to lift its oil embargo on Syria to provide more economic support to the forces fighting to oust President Bashar Assad’s regime, officials said yesterday.
The decision will allow for crude exports from rebel-held territory and the import of oil production technology. It marks the first relaxing of the EU’s sanctions in two years as governments try to help ease shortages of vital supplies in areas held by the opposition in the civil war-struck Arab state.
Ahead of a meeting of the EU’s 27 foreign ministers in Luxembourg, Germany’s chief diplomat, Guido Westerwelle, said the move aims at “granting stronger economic support” for the rebels.
“We wish for good economic development in the areas controlled by the opposition, therefore we lift the sanctions that hinder the moderate opposition forces’ work,” the German foreign minister said. “That is very certainly a strengthening of the democratic opposition because it makes people realize that there is a true alternative to the Assad regime.”
The oil exports could open an important revenue stream for Syria’s opposition, even though it is still unclear when and how much crude could be exported.
“The security situation is so difficult that much of this will be difficult to do, but it is important for us to send the signal that we are open to helping in other ways, in all the ways possible,” British Foreign Secretary William Hague said.
Syria’s oil industry has faltered as the rebels have captured many of the country’s oil fields, with wells aflame and looters scooping up crude. That has deprived Assad’s government of much-needed cash and fuel for its war machine as it fights the two-year-old uprising.
Russia had earlier on the day warned the European Union yesterday not to lift an arms embargo that has prevented weapons supplies to Syrian rebels, despite British and French lobbying.
Russia, which says it is continuing to implement weapons contracts with Syria but is no longer delivering arms that could be used in the civil conflict, has vehemently opposed any supplies of weapons to President Bashar Assad’s opponents.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said an embargo was unnecessary in the first place because such supplies were prohibited by international law.
If the embargo is removed, “the international obligations of the EU countries, which prohibit supplies of arms and ammunition to non-government actors, are not going anywhere,” he said at a news briefing after talks with his Guinean counterpart.
Russia has used its UN Security Council veto power to shield Assad from Western efforts to push him from power or increase pressure upon him to end violence in a conflict that has killed more than 70,000 people since March 2011.
Moscow has for months been calling for implementation of an declaration agreed by world powers including Russia and the United States in Geneva last June that called for a transitional government. However, Washington disagrees with Moscow’s assertion that the agreement requires Assad to step down.
Lavrov said he and US Secretary of State John Kerry would discuss ways to promote a peace process in Syria at talks on the sidelines of a NATO gathering and a Russia-NATO foreign ministers’ meeting in Brussels on Tuesday.
“We will discuss what we, Russia and the United States, can do to convince those who ... are resisting the peace process to step onto the path of implementing the Geneva agreements,” Lavrov said.
Russian and US diplomats have held several meetings for that purpose since late last year, to little effect.
Lavrov said that in a telephone conversation with Kerry on Saturday, “I sensed confirmation of the intention ... to seek as swift as possible a political solution”.
But he said the West had not done enough to encourage all Assad’s foes to show readiness for dialogue with the government: “So far there is clearly not enough movement on this.”