Syria is hailing its return from international isolation with a landmark visit on Wednesday by the European Union’s foreign policy chief as diplomacy in the Middle East intensifies ahead of a key Arab League summit in Saudi Arabia at the end of this month.
Damascus is trumpeting the talks with Javier Solana as evidence that the country is coming in from the cold after being largely shunned by Europe since the assassination of the former Lebanese prime minister, Rafik al-Hariri, two years ago.
Solana, mandated by all 27 EU member states, was only able to arrange the trip late last week when France lifted the veto imposed by President Jacques Chirac after the murder of Hariri, a close friend. The Syrian government and media is preparing to give him the red carpet treatment, but there is no evidence of a change on basics.
The visit follows signs that the United States may be slowly changing its approach to Damascus. Last weekend, Syria’s Deputy Foreign Minister took part, with the US and Iran, in security talks in Iraq, as recommended by the Baker-Hamilton commission. On Monday, Ellen Sauerbrey, Assistant Secretary of State for Refugees and Migration, became the highest-level US official to visit Syria for two years. Her visit was to discuss the plight of the tens of thousands of Iraqi refugees in the country. Washington insisted that that was the context, not any improvement in bilateral relations.
“It has become crystal clear that Syria couldn’t be isolated,” said the government newspaper Al-Thawra.
“People are knocking on Syria’s door,” said Ghayth Armanazi, director of the Syrian Media Centre in London. “The Europeans have realised that Syria is a pivotal state. Even the Americans are starting to take steps in that direction.”
Diplomats say that Europeans have come to recognise that engagement is likely to be more productive than isolation as Syria is intimately involved in the crisis in Lebanon, has been attacked for not closing its border to foreign fighters entering Iraq, and is a supporter of Hamas, the Islamist movement at the centre of talks on a new Palestinian unity government.
Solana was expected to raise the issue of alleged Syrian arms shipments to Hezbollah, the Lebanese guerrilla movement which fought last summer’s war. Israel opposed his trip, arguing that it would reward Damascus “for policies that have endangered the Middle East”.
Syria is also the only Arab country which has a strategic relationship with Iran, embroiled in an intensifying row with the west over its nuclear ambitions.
In Beirut on Monday, Solana promised “frank discussions” in Syria on its role in Lebanon, where many blame President Bashar al-Assad for a series of bomb attacks. He will also address the issue of the UN tribunal due to try suspects in the Hariri killing. Fuad Siniora’s pro-Western government is seeking parliamentary approval for the tribunal, but this is being resisted by the pro-Syrian opposition.
Damascus insists that any of its nationals accused of involvement in the killing should be tried in accordance with Syrian law.
The EU envoy said that Damascus would have to “modify” its behaviour. But the official media was defiant. “Syria did not change its policies simply because they proved to be correct and do not need to be changed,” said an editorial in Al-Thawra. “The others should make the required change because they were wrong.”
Last year, British Prime Minister Tony Blair sent his foreign policy adviser, Nigel Sheinwald, to Damascus on a private mission to see Assad. That too was hailed as flattering recognition of Syria’s importance but produced little change apart from the establishment of diplomacy with the Iraqi government. Possible carrots for Syria include implementation of an “association agreement” with the EU, which would give the country preferential trade arrangements. There is greater excitement about the thaw with Europe than any rapprochement with the US. “Warming relations need deep talks and a long time for mutual doubts to be removed,” the Syrian Vice-President Farouq al-Shara, said.
Solana spent Tuesday in Saudi Arabia, talking to King Abdullah and his foreign minister, Prince Saud al-Faisal, who rejected Israeli calls for changes to the Arab peace initiative agreed in 2002 and expected to be revived in some form at the Riyadh summit on March 28.
Backstory
Syria is a frontline state in the conflict with Israel and has been waiting for nearly 40 years to regain the strategic Golan Heights it lost in 1967 President Bashar al-Assad succeeded his father, Hafez, in 2000 but has not stayed the course as the liberal reformer of Western hopes. Long influential in Lebanon, Syria was forced to withdraw its forces in 2005 after the Hariri assassination, and has been facing down pressure over the incident ever since. The US has refused to remove Syria from its list of states sponsoring terrorism because of its links to Hizbullah in Lebanon and the Palestinian Hamas and Islamic Jihad, which Damascus insists are resistance movements. The EU favours dialogue, but finds it difficult. “We never cut relations, they were never frozen, but they were very, very cold,” said Cristina Gallach, spokesperson for Javier Solana. – Guardian Unlimited Â