Italy's foreign minister says a moratorium on European Union sanctions on Syria could help encourage the country's transition after the ouster of President Bashar al-Assad by opposition groups.
Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani visited Syria on Friday and expressed Italy’s keen interest in helping Syria recover from civil war, rebuild its broken economy and help stabilize the region.
Tajani, who met with Syria’s new de facto leaders, including Ahmed al-Sharaa, said a stable Syria and Lebanon was of strategic and commercial importance to Europe.
He said the fall of Assad's government, as well as the Lebanon parliament's vote on Thursday to elect army commander Joseph Aoun as president, were signs of optimism for Middle East stability.
He said Italy wanted to play a leading role in Syria’s recovery and serve as a bridge between Damascus and the EU, particularly given Italy’s commercial and strategic interests in the Mediterranean.
“The Mediterranean can no longer just be a sea of death, a cemetery of migrants but a sea of commerce a sea of development,” he said.
Tajani later traveled to Lebanon and met with Aoun. Italy has long played a sizeable role in the UN peacekeeping force for Lebanon, UNIFIL.
On the eve of his visit, Tajani presided over a meeting in Rome with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and officials from Britain, France and Germany as well as the EU foreign policy chief. He said that meeting of the so-called Quintet on Syria was key to begin the discussion about a change to the EU sanctions.
“The sanctions were against the Assad regime. If the situation has changed, we have to change our choices,” Tajani said.
