Brussels, 16/09/2015 (Agence Europe) - On Tuesday 15 September, High Representative of the EU for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Federica Mogherini announced that the EU was working with the UN special envoy for Syria, Staffan de Mistura, in order to set up an international contact group on Syria - comprising a group of countries that have an influence on the Syrian conflict.
“Along with de Mistura, we are working on setting up a group with all the countries in the region that can have a good or bad influence on the region”, Mogherini said at a discussion at the European Parliament on migration. She stated that while the EU had “a role to play”, the UN “should be the leading party”. “What we can do is use our influence to support the work of the UN envoy to move towards a transition”, she said. In an interview with French newspaper Libération on 15 September, Mogherini said that they could “try to bring together regional actors like Iran, the Gulf monarchies and Turkey with the USA and Russia, in an international framework”.
With the United Nations General Assembly meeting from 15 September, the chair of the European Parliament's foreign affairs committee, Elmar Brok, who attended the Parliament's discussion on migration, said he hoped that a common position will be defined at the UN in order to bring together “Riyadh (Saudi Arabia), Tehran (Iran) and Ankara (Turkey), without whom a lasting solution could not be hoped for in a situation where shelter is taken behind the religious argument in order to justify the war among other things”. “The UN must take more responsibility. We must take more responsibility”, he said.
When he visited Brussels on 7 September, de Mistura had called on the EU to put “moral and political pressure” on Russia and the USA on one side, and on Iran and Saudi Arabia on the other, so that they might talk together (see EUROPE 11384). (Camille-Cerise Gessant)