On Tuesday 4 April, High Representative of the EU for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Federica Mogherini condemned the chemical attack carried out in the rebel city of Khan Cheikhoun in north-western Syria. The attack has reportedly left 100 dead, including several children. There are reports that the hospital where the victims of the attack were being cared for was then apparently bombed.
"The news is awful but this is a dramatic reminder of the fact that the situation on the ground continues to be dramatic in different parts of Syria, in different parts of society", Mogherini told several news agencies, including EUROPE. "Obviously, there is a primary responsibility there from the regime – first and foremost because it has the primary responsibility to protect its people and not attack its people", she added. Mogherini said that this "tragedy" is a reminder that the priority is to stop the conflict. She also stated that the "question of accountability" was "very important for the EU".
At a press conference with the special envoy for Syria, Staffan de Mistura, later in the day, Mogherini said that "for the moment", there was no indication of who was responsible for the attack.
De Mistura stated that the EU would ask for clear identification of who held responsibility for this "horrible" attack. Several foreign ministers have also condemned the attack, and France has called for an emergency UN Security Council meeting.
In an interview given to several news agencies, including EUROPE, Mogherini underlined that the priority was to stop the conflict. She said it was the responsibility of those who had a direct or indirect military role to ensure the ceasefire held, and she hoped Russia, Iran and Turkey would do this. The EU for its part is focusing on a political and humanitarian role. Mogherini said that the EU is not playing a military role but is a "credible political interlocutor for all parties". She repeatedly underscored the EU's support for the intra-Syrian negotiations under the auspices of de Mistura.
While it is up to the Syrians to decide on the future of their country, it is up to the international community and the regional actors, including Russia, to create the space so that the Syrian parties can set out the path to follow, Mogherini stated. The regional actors have a "special interest" in ensuring that Syria does not become another "black hole" in a very vast region, she said.
Mogherini also stated that the political agreement should be as inclusive as possible, and all the more so as Syria was a real religious "patchwork", and as the country was the subject of political divisions before the war. "In the Syria of tomorrow, everyone will have to feel at home, in their country", she said. "Otherwise, we will probably have latent conflicts or the collapse" of the country, she warned. She added that "too often in the past we have experienced winning the war, then losing the peace".
Asked about the future of Bashar al-Assad, Mogherini said she thought it was "unrealistic to think that the political and institutional situation might return to what is was seven years ago". "After long conflicts, this will never happen", she added. "After such a long and tragic conflict, there must be accountability, transitional justice, governance that ensures this (...) institutional reshaping", Mogherini said, adding that Assad's future would also follow this exercise. "What kind of institutions to set up, what sequencing for the different stages of the political agreement and the political transition, what type of arrangement – these are the elements, if I understand properly, that the parties in Geneva have begun to look at in detail", she added.
Although, at the Syria conference organised in Brussels on Wednesday 5 April, the 70 delegations are expected to affirm their support for the negotiations, they are also expected to focus on the post-conflict period. While recognising that it could seem "surreal to plan the peace when the conflict is still in full flow", Mogherini said the international community should be ready for the next stage.
At the conference, the international community is therefore expected to discuss how "to support the future of Syria that will have been decided upon by the Syrians coherently and steadily". Mogherini said that this will avoid risks of aid which is too slow or small, but it will also be an incentive for the Syrian parties to work on an agreement. "We are starting this work because it can also be part of a dividend for peace that the parties could appreciate in their efforts to engage in the discussions. It is easier to imagine peace, if you have the hope that it can be supported by others", she said. "If you don't know that the international community is ready to help, this can be used as an alibi" by the parties. The fact that the international community is making preparations can remove this alibi, Mogherini added.
However, while waiting for peace to return to Syria, the people still need aid. Mogherini thus said that at the conference, the EU would urge the international community to "at least maintain its level of pledges" of financial aid made for 2016 and 2017. "This aid must not be diminished", she added. A sum of €6 billion had been pledged for the Syrians, during the conference in London in February 2016.
A special meeting of the UN Security Council has been called for Wednesday 5 April "to address this alleged chemical attack". (Original version in French by Camille-Cerise Gessant)