Syria Begins Pulling Envoys Out of EU: Diplomats
Syria has begun pre-emptively withdrawing ambassadors from Europe because it fears EU members will expel them in response to President Bashar al-Assad’s ruthless crackdown on an uprising, Arab diplomats said.
They said Syrian envoys in a number of European Union countries had been told to come home by their government and were preparing to leave as soon as possible, although they did not specify the countries.
EU member states have been discussing proposals, promoted by France, to collectively downgrade diplomatic ties both in EU capitals and Damascus, but with no agreement so far.
In Brussels, an EU foreign policy spokesman said: “There is an ongoing discussion about the status of EU embassies in Syria and Syrian embassies in Brussels and in EU states, but there is no proposal at the moment to expel Syrian diplomats.”
French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe, who has closed his country’s embassy in Damascus but not yet asked the Syrian ambassador to leave, made clear that EU foreign ministers meeting in Copenhagen had not reached a common position.
“We wish there had been a collective decision on this point, and we call on our partners to withdraw their ambassadors altogether,” he told reporters on Saturday. “It has not been possible.”