Brussels, 13/02/2012 (Agence Europe) - The European Union supports the “bold” decisions by the Arab League on Syria, including its call to the Security Council for a joint United Nations-Arab League force to put an end to the violence, the spokesman for EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs Catherine Ashton announced on Monday 13 February. The EU fully supports any initiative to bring an immediate end to bloody repression, “including a stronger Arab presence on the ground in cooperation with the UN to achieve a cease fire and the end of violence”, said Michael Mann, stating that the EU is in constant contact with the Arab League and the UN to discuss how this can be set in motion “as soon as possible”. Ashton will meet US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton this week.
The EU wants to play “a very active part” in the Group of Friends of Syria which will meet in Tunis on 24 February, in a meeting to be attended by Ashton, Mann added. The objective of this group is to “build an international consensus on Syria and put forward urgent proposals to stop the killings, alleviate the suffering of the Syrian population, seek a peaceful outcome to the current crisis and promote a new era of democratic change”, he said.
Member states on different wavelengths. On Monday, several EU member states welcomed the Arab initiative. On the eve of the visit of Arab League Secretary General Nabil Al Arabi to Berlin, the German Foreign Ministry welcomed “the involvement of the Arab league, whose active role is of the greatest importance in resolving the Syrian crisis”. “The proposal for a joint Arab League-United Nations mission must also be put to the Security Council as quickly as possible”, the ministry went on. Italian Foreign Minister Giulio Terzi also backed a joint peace-keeping force “to monitor that the ceasefire was being respected on the ground”. He said that he hoped there would be “as broad a consensus as possible in the international community” and hope there would be agreement in what is said at the UN.
France and the United Kingdom were more cautious, however. UK Foreign Minister William Hague said that his country would hold urgent discussions with other countries on the formation of this joint force, adding that Western powers should not be involved. He said he did not believe that having Western boots o the ground, in whatever form, including as part of a peace-keeping force, was a path that should be taken in Syria. He went on to say that, if such an idea could be made viable, the UK would support it in all the usual ways. French minister Alain Juppé warned against “any external military intervention” which would “only aggravate the situation, especially as no decision has been taken by the Security Council, which is the only body empowered to authorise military intervention”. France and the UK backed the creation of a Friends of Syria group and said that they would play an active role in it.
Russia has said it would look at the proposal. “We would like our friends from the Arab countries to clarify a number of points”, said Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. To be able to deploy a peace-keeping force, “there has to be something resembling a ceasefire”, he argued, stating that this would be something that would be difficult to achieve as “the armed groups which are fighting the Syrian regime obey no one and are controlled by no one”.
The Syrian regime has restated its determination to “assume its responsibilities for the protection of its citizens” and “restore security and stability” in the country. “Syria rejects the decisions (of the Arab League) which constitute flagrant interference in the internal matters of the country and an attack on national sovereignty”, stated a Syrian official.
The Arab League announced on Sunday 12 February that it would provide political and material support to the Syrian opposition and ask the Security Council to adopt a resolution on forming an Arab-UN peace-keeping force to monitor the ceasefire. (CG/transl.rt)