BRUSSELS (Reuters) – Some European Union sanctions against Syria are being lifted, France’s foreign minister said on Monday, as part of a broader EU move to help stabilise Damascus after the ousting of President Bashar al-Assad in December.
EU foreign ministers were discussing the matter at a meeting in Brussels on Monday with the bloc’s foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas having told Reuters that she was hopeful an agreement on easing the sanctions could be reached.
“Regarding Syria, we are going to decide today to lift, to suspend, certain sanctions that had applied to the energy and transport sectors and to financial institutions that were key to the financial stabilisation of the country,” French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot said on arrival at the EU meeting in Brussels.
He added that France would also propose slapping sanctions on Iranian officials responsible for the detention of French citizens in Iran.
“I will announce today that we will propose that those responsible for these arbitrary detentions may be sanctioned by the European Union in the coming months,” he said.
Assad, whose family had ruled Syria with an iron first for 54 years, was toppled by Islamist rebels on Dec. 8, bringing an abrupt end to a devastating 13-year civil war that had created one of the biggest refugee crises of modern times.
The conflict left large parts of many major cities in ruins, services decrepit and the vast majority of the population living in poverty. The harsh Western sanctions regime has effectively cuts off its formal economy from the rest of the world.
(Reporting by Sudip Kar-Gupta; editing by Mark Heinrich)
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