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BRUSSELS, April 19: Syria will boycott a meeting of foreign ministers from the European Union and Mediterranean rim states in Spain next week and Lebanon looks likely to follow suit, an EU diplomat said on Friday.
He gave no reason, but Syria and Lebanon had demanded Israel be shut out from the talks because of its military offensive against Palestinians in the West Bank, and the EU rejected their demand.
“Syria informed us orally that it won’t be there. Lebanon said it can’t be there to sign an accord. That’s a way of saying that they won’t be there either,” the diplomat said.
Earlier on Friday, a European Commission spokesman said the EU was trying “at the highest level” to persuade both countries to attend the EuroMed conference in Valencia on Monday and Tuesday.
“The conflict in the Middle East has already caused too many casualties and taken too many hostages, and it would be a mistake to make the Barcelona Process and this meeting in Valencia another one,” spokesman Gunnar Wiegand said.
He said Beirut had called off a signing ceremony scheduled to take place just before the meeting to seal a trade and cooperation agreement with the EU.
In Damascus, the official SANA news agency quoted a senior foreign ministry official as saying that Damascus would not attend any meeting at which Israel was also present.
SANA said Syria was concerned that Israel would read any participation as a “submission to its racist policies and a boost to its defiance of the international community”.
The EU delegate to Beirut said Lebanese officials had yet to confirm they would attend the meeting. “I hope they will attend, but it seems that it is still under discussion,” said Patrick Renauld.
EU TO PRESSURE ISRAEL: The EuroMed partnership of the EU and 11 Mediterranean states and the Palestinian Authority was inaugurated at a conference in Barcelona in Nov 1995 to spur economic integration between Europe and its southern neighbours.
Syria and Lebanon boycotted a meeting of EuroMed foreign ministers in Marseilles after the start of the Palestinian uprising, but they returned to the forum last year.
On Thursday the Commission, the EU’s executive arm, rebuffed a call by the two countries to shut Israel out of the Valencia meeting. They have accused Israel of “crimes” in its assault on West Bank towns.
Israel is expected to send Foreign Minister Shimon Peres to Valencia, where the EU plans to press at bilateral talks for an immediate withdrawal of troops from Palestinian areas.
The EU has been sharply critical of Israel’s offensive, and External Affairs Commissioner Chris Patten has called for an international probe of charges that Israel massacred hundreds of people in the Jenin refugee camp.
Commission spokesman Michael Curtis said on Friday that there was also concern about decomposing bodies and a lack of food, water and medicines in other camps.
“Access to the NGOs (non-governmental organizations) is being systematically denied to these camps,” he said.
“And we renew our calls to the Israelis to respect international humanitarian law by allowing unhindered access to the camps, to the people in need, so we can get relief in on a regular basis as we were...before these events.”—Reuters
