Suspension of visas to EU diplomats hampers Syria aid work

Syrian security forces inspect a burned car at the site of an explosion in Latakia, near President Bashar Assad’s ancestral village, on Tuesday. (AP)
Updated 25 January 2019
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Suspension of visas to EU diplomats hampers Syria aid work

  • The special permission to use multiple-entry Syrian visas for access to Damascus was rescinded at the start of January

BRUSSELS, BEIRUT: Syrian President Bashar Assad has suspended special multiple-entry visas for EU diplomats to Damascus.

“We are continuing as the EU ... to do whatever we can to avoid it having an impact on the important work we are doing on the ground,” a European Commission spokeswoman said on Thursday.

The special permission to use multiple-entry Syrian visas for access to Damascus was rescinded at the start of January with no explanation from the Syrian regime, complicating efforts to distribute humanitarian aid to civil war victims.

 


US envoy to meet head of Syrian Kurdish forces in Irbil: Iraqi Kurdistan presidency

Updated 4 sec ago
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US envoy to meet head of Syrian Kurdish forces in Irbil: Iraqi Kurdistan presidency

IRBIL: US special envoy Tom Barrack and the head of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, Mazloum Abdi, arrived in Irbil on Saturday for a meeting, a source in the presidency of Iraq’s autonomous Kurdistan region told AFP.
Barrack will first sit down with Iraqi Kurdish political leader Massoud Barzani, then with Abdi, then with the president of Iraqi Kurdistan, Nechirvan Barzani, the source said.
The meetings come after clashes between Kurdish forces and the Syrian army in and around Aleppo in recent days.