EU fails to find united position on arming Syrian rebels

A file picture dated 13 March 2013 shows a Free Syrian Army fighter shooting at Syrian Army positions in Menag, Syria: photo - EPA/MAYSUN

The embargo will end on 31 May, though other sanctions against the President Bashar al-Assad regime, including asset freezes and travel bans on senior Syrian officials, as well as curbs on trade, infrastructure projects and the transport sector, will remain in place.

British and French government could be free to send arms to rebels fighting the Syrian regime in a bloody civil war that has cost an estimated 80,000 lives from 1 August after EU foreign ministers failed to reach a united stance on the issue.

UK foreign minister William Hague said last night that “while we have no immediate plans to send arms to Syria, it gives us the flexibility to respond in the future if the situation continues to deteriorate.”

London and Paris are hoping that the threat of supplying the rebels with arms will force President Bashar al-Assad to seek a political solution to the two-year old conflict.

Opposition to ending the Syrian arms ban was led in Brussels by Austria and Sweden, though Poland was also reluctant to give the move the green light.

Foreign minister Radoslaw Sikorski told reporters before the meeting that Poland believes the best solution would be an internal political resolution to the conflict in Syria, with the help of a second international peace conference in Geneva, recently proposed by Russia and the United States.

He added that an extension to existing sanctions before the Geneva conference was "Poland's starting position.”

“We do not know what the consequences of arming the Syrian opposition would be,” Sikorski warned.

The EU's foreign policy chief, Catherine Ashton, sought to play down the fact that the EU could not find a common stance on the issue, claiming “there is a recognition that in trying to establish how best to support the people of Syria, countries will want to make some decisions [unilaterally]" she told reporters. (pg)

source: PAP/Reuters