Seoul: US Secretary of State Antony Blinken will meet his European counterparts Thursday in Rome on Syria, as the West looks to engage the new Islamist-led leadership.
Blinken will “meet with European counterparts to advocate for a peaceful, inclusive, Syrian-led and Syrian-owned political transition,” a State Department statement said as he visited Seoul on Monday.
The State Department did not immediately specify the participants.
Blinken, on a trip that will also take him to Japan and France, will later join President Joe Biden as he pays a farewell visit to Rome that includes an audience with Pope Francis.
Islamist-led forces toppled longtime ruler Bashar Assad in a lightning offensive last month after 13 years of brutal war.
Western powers have since been cautiously hoping for greater stability in Syria, a decade after the war triggered a major refugee crisis that shook up European politics.
The French and German foreign ministers on Friday visited Syria, although the trip was overshadowed when new leader Ahmed Al-Sharaa shook the hand only of France’s Jean-Noel Barrot, a man, and not Germany’s Annalena Baerbock, a woman.
Senior US diplomat Barbara Leaf met Sharaa last month and said that the United States was lifting a bounty that has been on its head.
She also welcomed “positive messages” he has made, including on protection of minorities, and said he had promised that Syria would not pose a threat to neighboring countries, as Israel pounds Syrian military sites.
Blinken to meet Europeans on Syria pathway
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Blinken to meet Europeans on Syria pathway
- Senior US diplomat Barbara Leaf met Sharaa last month and said that the United States was lifting a bounty that has been on its head
Fossils of ‘Java Man,’ first known Homo erectus, return to Indonesia
- Netherlands to repatriate more than 28,000 items in Dubois collection in 2026
- Fossils excavated in Indonesia were ‘removed against will of people’
JAKARTA: Prehistoric bones belonging to “Java Man” — the first known fossil evidence of Homo erectus — went on display at Indonesia’s National Museum on Thursday, more than 130 years after they were taken to the Netherlands during Dutch colonial rule.
The parts of the skeleton — a skull fragment, molar and thigh bone — were uncovered along the Bengawan Solo River on Java island in the late 19th century by Dutch anatomist and geologist Eugene Dubois.
The three items, and a related shell that was scratched by early Homo erectus, are the first in the planned repatriation of more than 28,000 fossils and natural history objects originating in Java and Sumatra that Dubois had removed.
“Repatriation is a national priority,” Indonesian Culture Minister Fadli Zon said during an official handover ceremony in Jakarta.
“We bear the responsibility to protect cultural heritage, restore historical narratives and ensure public access to the cultural and scientific heritage that belongs to Indonesia.”
Fossils of the Java Man, which was hand-carried in a GPS-tracked, climate-controlled suitcase with a diplomatic seal, were some of the first pieces of evidence showing links between apes and humans.
The fossils are part of the larger Dubois collection that was managed by Naturalis Biodiversity Center, a 200-year-old scientific institution in Leiden.
The rest of the collection will be transferred to Indonesia in 2026, the Dutch Embassy in Jakarta said in a statement, adding that Indonesia’s National Research and Innovation Agency will take a lead role in preserving and managing the items.
“This handover marks the beginning of the next phase. We intend to repatriate thousands of items excavated in Indonesia over 130 years ago,” said Marcel Beukeboom, general director of Naturalis Biodiversity Center.
“This fossil bears witness to an important link in human evolution, while also representing part of Indonesian history and cultural heritage,” he said.
Jakarta started to campaign for the Dutch government to return stolen Indonesian artifacts after declaring independence in 1945, but the Netherlands started to return stolen items only in small numbers in the 1970s.
Recent efforts by the Indonesian Repatriation Committee have brought back home hundreds of artifacts since 2023, bringing the number to more than 2,000 items so far.
The repatriation of the Dubois collection was first announced in September, following recommendation by the Netherlands’ Colonial Collections Committee.
“The Colonial Collections Committee has concluded … that the Dutch state never owned the Dubois collection,” the Dutch government said in a news release issued at the time.
“The committee believes that the circumstances under which the fossils were obtained means it is likely they were removed against the will of the people, resulting in an act of injustice against them.
“Fossils held spiritual and economic value for local people, who were coerced into revealing fossil sites.”
The returned fossils are now a centerpiece of “Early History,” a new permanent exhibit at the National Museum in Jakarta that opened to the public on Thursday.
It explores the history of human civilization throughout Indonesia, with displays including a replica of one of the world’s oldest cave paintings from South Sulawesi and inscriptions from the 4th-century Hindu Kutai Martadipura Kingdom in East Kalimantan.
