Italy Says Suspending EU Sanctions on Syria Could Help Encourage Transition

In this photo released by the Syrian official news agency SANA, Syria's de facto leader Ahmad al-Sharaa, right, meets with Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani in Damascus, Syria, Friday, Jan. 10, 2025. (SANA via AP)
In this photo released by the Syrian official news agency SANA, Syria's de facto leader Ahmad al-Sharaa, right, meets with Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani in Damascus, Syria, Friday, Jan. 10, 2025. (SANA via AP)
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Italy Says Suspending EU Sanctions on Syria Could Help Encourage Transition

In this photo released by the Syrian official news agency SANA, Syria's de facto leader Ahmad al-Sharaa, right, meets with Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani in Damascus, Syria, Friday, Jan. 10, 2025. (SANA via AP)
In this photo released by the Syrian official news agency SANA, Syria's de facto leader Ahmad al-Sharaa, right, meets with Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani in Damascus, Syria, Friday, Jan. 10, 2025. (SANA via AP)

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.



Syria Arrests Assad-era Officer Accused of 'War Crimes'

Sultan al-Tinawi. (Syrian Interior Ministry)
Sultan al-Tinawi. (Syrian Interior Ministry)
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Syria Arrests Assad-era Officer Accused of 'War Crimes'

Sultan al-Tinawi. (Syrian Interior Ministry)
Sultan al-Tinawi. (Syrian Interior Ministry)

Syrian authorities said Tuesday they had arrested a former officer in the feared security apparatus of ousted ruler Bashar al-Assad, the latest such announcement as the new government pursues ex-officials accused of atrocities.

The interior ministry announced in a statement that security forces in the coastal province of Latakia had arrested the "criminal brigadier-general Sultan al-Tinawi", saying he was a key officer in the air force intelligence, one of the Assad family's most trusted security agencies.

The statement accused Tinawi of involvement in "committing war crimes against civilians, including a massacre" in the Damascus countryside in 2016.

It said he was responsible for "coordinating between the leadership of the Lebanese Hezbollah militia and a number of sectarian groups in Syria".

Tinawi has been referred to the public prosecution for further investigation, the statement said.

A security source, requesting anonymity as they were not authorized to speak to the media, said that Tinawi held senior administrative positions in the air force intelligence when Jamil Hassan was head of the notorious agency.

Hassan has been sentenced in absentia in France for complicity in crimes against humanity and war crimes, while the United States has accused him of "war crimes", including overseeing barrel bomb attacks on Syrian people that killed thousands of civilians.

Tinawi had been "head of the information branch of the air force intelligence" before Assad's ouster late last year, the security source told AFP, describing the branch as "one of the most powerful and secret security agencies in the country".

Since taking power in December, Syria's new authorities have announced a number of arrests of Assad-era security officials.

Assad fled to Moscow with only a handful of confidants, abandoning senior officials and security officers, some of whom have reportedly fled to neighboring countries or taken refuge in the coastal heartland of Assad's Alawite minority community.