Brussels, 05/02/2016 (Agence Europe) - On Friday 5 February, French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said the Syrian regime, aided by Russia, “was torpedoing” the Syrian peace negotiations. Russia has conducted over a thousand raids since 1 February, which have mainly affected members of the opposition. This has enabled the regime's forces to advance towards Aleppo.
“The reality is that Bashar al-Assad is supported by Russia and by Iran - through Hezbollah - and is in the process of completely torpedoing the Geneva negotiations. A political solution is needed, but there can be no political discussions if one of the camps is in the middle of murdering the other”, Fabius told French news agency AFP and EUROPE, on arriving at the informal EU foreign affairs ministers' meeting in Amsterdam. The intra-Syrian discussions were suspended on Wednesday 3 February, theoretically until 25 February, and the Syrian opposition would like humanitarian gestures from the regime before returning to the negotiating table.
Fabius thus called on the parties to return to the negotiating table. “It's important to return to the table and to respect the humanitarian obligations, to stop the murder of the population, and the bombing and making headquarters in towns with hundreds of thousands of people who are starving”, he added. Fabius stated that this was “the responsibility of Bashar al-Assad”. “But everyone knows that Bashar al-Assad is supported by the Russians. It's important to be quite clear about this”, he added.
“Russia has always insisted on the fact that the important thing for Russia is to fight against ISIL. If it does this, then it is respecting the mandates of the United Nations Organisation. Everything that goes beyond this is not helping the solution”, said Spain's Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs Ignacio Ybanez on arriving in Amsterdam, but adding that it was important to see how this was progressing, step by step. “We hope that all the conditions will be met for the parties to be able to come to the negotiating table. The efforts of the special envoy for Syria, Staffan de Mistura, are very important but, of course, if at the same time that these efforts are being made there are still clashes that are increasingly difficult, then it is very difficult for both to sit around the table”, he warned. He added that the solution was political and that this required all parties to be present.
Upon arriving at the informal Defence Council, which preceded that of Foreign Affairs, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg also criticised the fact that the “Russian air strikes, which are mainly targeting the opposition groups in Syria, are undermining the efforts to find a political solution to the Syrian conflict”. He also called for calm, de-escalation and a political solution in Syria.
Germany's Foreign Affairs Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier announced on arriving at the Gymnich Council that the Iranian and Saudi ministers would attend the international conference on Syria in Munich on 11 February. He said he did not believe this was a sign of détente yet, but was perhaps a sign that the escalation was not progressing. He stated that both countries were needed to be able to make progress in the Syrian political process. (Original version in French by Camille-Cerise Gessant)