EU countries have agreed to start buying oil from Syrian rebels in a largely symbolic move designed to give moral support. The decision, which entered into force on Tuesday (23 April), allows EU governments to buy crude ...

Last month, I visited northern Syria three times with the Free Syrian Army (FSA). I spoke to many defected generals, commanders on the ground, people in the FSA headquarters and military-civilian organisers of ...

EU foreign ministers meeting on Friday and Saturday (22-23 March) in Dublin will seek to overcome disagreements over how to deal with a Syrian arms embargo. Britain and France want to change it so weapons can be ...

Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands have issued a plea for the EU to stop infighting on Syria. The Benelux countries in a joint statement on Friday (15 March) said: "We must stay united if we want to convince Russia ...

The family of one extraordinary Syrian man facing life in prison has appealed to the EU for diplomatic assistance. "We need the urgent support of the European Union. This is our call to the European External Action ...

EU countries could soon be competing with Iran and Russia to arm the opposing sides in Syria's civil war. The prospect arose on Thursday (14 March), when German foreign minister Guido Westerwelle indicated that Berlin ...

British leader David Cameron has said he might send arms to rebels in Syria whether fellow EU countries like it or not. Speaking to the House of Commons liaison committee on Tuesday (12 March), he said: "I would like to ...

France has said the EU should reconsider its ban on giving arms to Syrian rebels, despite German opposition to the move. French foreign minister Laurent Fabius told press after meeting his colleagues in Brussels on ...

Bashar al-Assad’s 40-year old regime would topple within a month if the West were to lift the arms embargo and supply the rebels with weapons, Syria’s rebel top commander Brigadier General Selim Idriss has said. Idriss, ...

The European Union on Thursday (28 February) agreed to supply Syria’s opposition, the Syrian National Coalition, with "non-lethal military equipment." The amended arms embargo will allow for “the provision of non-lethal ...

Spanish MEP Juan Lopez Aguilar just returned from a visit to Zaatari, a refugee camp in Jordan, about 12 kilometres from the Syrian border, hosting almost 100,000 Syrian refugees. "It is about the end of the regime, in ...

From 18 to 23 January I travelled to the Hatay region in Turkey and the Aleppo region in northern Syria. I was there with Rami Jarah and Deiaa Dughmoch (two Syrian activists who had in the past visited the Liberal group ...

Nato head Anders Fogh Rasmussen has said that the alliance would only take action against Syria if Turkey is attacked. Speaking to EUobserver in his office in Brussels last week, the secretary general of what calls ...

Justice ministers from around Europe are gathering in Dublin near the end of the week as euro-deputies convene a plenary in Strasbourg. EU justice commissioner Viviane Reding and EU home affairs commissioner Cecilia ...

Catherine Ashton's mandate is to provide leadership on foreign policy and human rights. She has failed, however, to ensure a collective EU voice for bringing the crimes in Syria before the International Criminal Court ( ...

Neighbouring countries surrounding war-ravaged Syria may seal off their borders if they can no longer absorb the increasing number of refugees, the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) representative to Jordan, Andrew Harper, told ...

EU foreign ministers meeting in Brussels Monday (23 July) are expected to extend sanctions on Syria while trying to clamp down on weapons making their way to the Bashar Assad government. A couple of dozen people and ...

Foreign ministers, including China and Russia, agreed Saturday (30 June) in Geneva to a new United Nations peace plan that calls upon the immediate cessation of violence in Syria and for “clear and irreversible steps” ...

Russia's ambassador to the EU has said "technical differerences" remain on how to handle Syria ahead of an international meeting in Geneva. Vladimir Chizhov told EUobserver on Thursday (28 June) that Russia, the EU and ...

A former Israeli intelligence chief has said EU and Nato countries can do more on Syria than complaining about Russia or imposing sanctions. The contact, who asked not to be named, spoke to diplomats and press in the EU ...

EU diplomats disagree with the US and Israel on whether Iran should join a Contact Group on Syria. UN emissary Kofi Annan last week called for the formation of a body akin to the one which steered events in the Balkans ...

Leaked letters show that EU mediation on Iran's nuclear programme is being bedevilled by time-wasting. EU foreign affairs chief Catherine Ashton is trying to organise a new round of talks on Iran in Moscow in her role ...

Vladimir Putin has made clear that he will not budge an inch on Syria ahead of an EU-Russia summit. Speaking in separate press events in Berlin and Paris on Friday (1 June), the Russian leader ruled out lifting his UN ...

Extra details have emerged on the three Syrian diplomats dubbed personae non gratae in the EU capital. The men are: Mohammed Ayman Soussan (Syria's ambassador to Belgium and to the EU); Wael Saker (an attache in the ...

French leader Francois Hollande has said military action in Syria is possible if the UN agrees, as EU countries expelled ambassadors. He spoke on national TV on Tuesday (29 May) following UN confirmation that Syrian ...

A "massacre" in the village of Houla in Syria on Friday (25 May) has not altered EU policy on the conflict. The UN Security Council in a press statement on Sunday said "dozens of men, women and children" are dead and " ...

As the EU stops sales of perfume and truffles to Syria, one officer in the Free Syrian Army (FSA) wonders why it is doing so little to really help. EU ministers imposed the ban on luxury goods at a meeting in Luxembourg ...

Belgium has asked EU countries to investigate whether Syrian diplomats are making threats against opposition members inside Europe. Michel Malherbe, a spokesman for Belgian foreign minister Didier Reynders, told this ...

Wives of the British and German ambassadors to the UN have launched a graphic and personal appeal to Syria's first lady to stop the killing of children. Huberta von Voss Wittig and Sheila Lyall Grant published a video ...

The EU is to add the Syrian leader's wife, mother, sister and sister-in-law to its blacklist at a foreign minister's meeting in Brussels on Friday (23 March). The new visa ban and asset freeze also covers eight members ...

The staying power of President Bashar Assad's regime in Syria is provoking two main responses from the international community. Gulf Arab states, led by Qatar and Saudi Arabia, are calling for arming the opposition (and ...

The EU recently extended its sanctions on Syria but with the crackdown against protesters continuing, MEPs have been asking Syrian opposition groups what more can be done to pressurise President Bashar Al Assad. ...

Debt-ridden Greece opposed the oil embargo but the bloc did slap sanctions on 180 companies or people linked to the alleged building of nuclear weapons. During the meeting, about 1,000 Iranian expatriates gathered to ...

A group of Syrians protested outside the European Parliament this week to ask the EU to expel all Syrian ambassadors in Europe and impose further sanctions on Bashar Al Assad's regime. The Syrian uprising began in ...