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
https://arab.news/rr4rz
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
Germany plays down threat of US invading Greenland after talks
WASHINGTON: Germany’s top diplomat on Monday played down the risk of a US attack on Greenland, after President Donald Trump’s repeated threats to seize the island from NATO ally Denmark.
Asked after meeting Secretary of State Marco Rubio about a unilateral military move by Trump, German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul said: “I have no indication that this is being seriously considered.”
“Rather, I believe there is a common interest in addressing the security issues that arise in the Arctic region, and that we should and will do so,” he told reporters.
“NATO is only now in the process of developing more concrete plans on this, and these will then be discussed jointly with our US partners.”
Wadephul’s visit comes ahead of talks this week in Washington between Rubio and the top diplomats of Denmark and Greenland, which is an autonomous territory of Denmark.
Trump in recent days has vowed that the United States will take Greenland “one way or the other” and said he can do it “the nice way or the more difficult way.”
Greenland’s government on Monday repeated that it would not accept a US takeover under “any circumstance.”
Greenland and NATO also said Monday that they were working on bolstering defense of the Arctic territory, a key concern cited by Trump.
Trump has repeatedly pointed to growing Arctic activity by Russia and China as a reason why the United States needs to take over Greenland.
But he has also spoken more broadly of his desire to expand the land mass controlled by the United States.
