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EU Blocks Anglo-French Drive To Arm Syrian Rebels
18 March 2013
(LPAC)—Britain and France ran into a roadblock in Brussels in their effort to get the European Union to lift its arms embargo on Syria high enough to allow the arming of the Syrian opposition. While it’s being reported that France and Britain were practically alone in their desire to arm the rebels, the greatest pushback apparently came from Germany and Austria. Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany told reporters, after the two-day EU summit, that she worried such a step would "just fan the flames of conflict." She was, according to the New York Times, backed up by Lady Catherine Ashton, the EU’s foreign policy chief, who also expressed doubts about the wisdom of lifting the arms embargo. Merkel apparently left open the possibility, however, that she may change her mind, saying that she had "not come as yet to a definitive position" on supplying arms to the rebels. Meanwhile, in the U.S., Rep. Eliot Engel (D-NY), the ranking Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, is circulating a letter seeking support for legislation he plans to introduce that would, according to the Associated Press, provide economic assistance to local groups supporting the Syrian opposition, expand humanitarian assistance and authorize the training and arming of "vetted" opposition fighters. This, he claimed, would provide two benefits above all: "bringing the humanitarian disaster to an end as soon as possible, and helping to ensure that the U.S. has a constructive relationship with a successor government in Damascus that pursues development, democracy and peace with its neighbors and rejects the regionally destabilizing influence of Iran and Hezbollah." Libya, anyone? |