De store EU-landene er uenige om væpning av syriske opprørere. Frankrike og Stobritannia ønsker å gi opprørerne våpen, for å kompensere for Russlands våpenleveranser til Assad. Men Tyskland sier nei.

Tyskland ønsker ikke å væpne opprørerne og mener det ikke vil dempe blodbadet.

Et annet spørsmål er hvor lenge EU kan unnlate å reagere på at Russland støtter Assad med våpen, stikk i strid med EUs ønsker. FNs utsending Lakhdar Brahimi uttalte at EU bør legge press på Russland.

Brahimi sa Syria kan komme til å ligne Somalia.

For his part, the man tasked by the UN and the Arab League to try to mediate in the conflict, Lakhdar Brahimi, told the meeting of EU foreign policy chiefs that Europe should urge Russia to play a more constructive role.

He warned that unless there is «a peaceful, consensual, political solution, [then] the situation will become similar to or even worse than, Somalia.»

But he gave no hope of any breakthrough in rebel-regime talks.

«He did not give me an iota of greater optimism,» Poland’s Radek Sikorski said after listening to the envoy.

«I’m very, very pessimistic. I’m afraid there will be a very long civil war,» Belgium’s Didier Reynders noted.

The EU ministers the same day further stigmatised the Syrian regime’s principal ally, Iran.

Svartlistingen av iranske tjenestemenn er interessant. EU har ellers gått på gummisåler overfor Iran.

They blacklisted seven Iranian jurists and prison chiefs as well as a new Cyber Police Unit in the Revolutionary Guards.

They accused one of the designated men, Abdolsamad Khoramabadi, Iran’s chief Internet censor, of having «actively contributed to the death in detention of the blogger Sattar Beheshti in November 2012.»

They accused the others of torture and hangings of political prisoners.

They also blacklisted the chief of Iran’s English-language propaganda channel, Press TV, Mohammad Sarafaz, and his top editor, Hamid Reza Emadi, for broadcasting prisoners’ «forced confessions.»

 

http://euobserver.com/foreign/119371