EU should ease Syria sanctions in return for 'positive steps', top diplomat Kallas says

BRUSSELS - The European Union should be ready to ease sanctions on Syria if the country's new leadership takes "positive steps" to establish an inclusive government and respect women's and minority rights, EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said on Monday.

Many EU foreign ministers at a meeting in Brussels on Monday also declared Syria should "get rid" of Russian influence such as military bases in the country, Kallas told reporters.

Kallas said she had sent a senior diplomat to meet officials from Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the Islamist group which has emerged as the ruling power in Damascus since toppling Bashar al-Assad just over a week ago.

Assad's sudden ouster has presented the 27-nation European Union and other outside powers with urgent questions over how to deal with Syria's new leaders.

On the one hand, EU leaders have welcomed the downfall of Assad, having long condemned his repressive rule and imposed wide-ranging sanctions on Syria in response.

However, they are also faced with a dilemma over how to deal with HTS, which has been designated as a terrorist organisation by the United Nations. The group was an al-Qaeda affiliate until it severed ties with the jihadist network in 2016.

In 2020, the EU accused HTS of unlawfully detaining, torturing and murdering civilians living in areas under the group's control and said this may amount to war crimes or crimes against humanity.

"We want to see no extremism, no radicalisation," Kallas said, adding that HTS was "saying the right things" so far but the group would be judged on its actions.

Kallas said she had asked EU ministers whether they were ready to adapt sanctions policy if they saw "positive steps, not the words, but actual steps and deeds" from the new leadership.

"We need to have ... the plan ready when we see the steps ... to act positively in this regard to help the development of Syria," she said.

Current EU sanctions include bans on arms exports to Syria and oil imports from the country, as well as a ban on investment in the Syrian oil industry and a freeze on any Syrian central bank assets in the EU.

(Additional reporting by Lili Bayer and Charlotte Van Campenhout, editing by Tomasz Janowski and Ros Russell)