By Kathryn Maureen Ryan
Impunity Watch, Managing Editor

DAMASCUS, Syria – Despite a recent diplomatic trip to Syria taken by four members of the French Parlmement, which included a meeting with Syrian Presidents Bashar Al-Assad, a trip that was not authorized by the Office of the French President, both France and the United Kingdom have definitively stated that renewed diplomatic ties with the Assad regime are not wise or likely, both Paris and London see the recent visit to Syria by French Parliamentarian as country to the official polices of each respective country. With the advance of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS) in both Syria and Iraq some European Union Leaders have stated that it may be time to re-establish lines of communication with Damascus because so far the four year civil war has failed to lead to the overthrow of Bashar Al-Assad’s brutal regime in Syria.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad meets with a French politicians led by Senate member, leader of the Senate’s French-Syrian Friendship Committee Jean-Pierre Vial on February 25, 2015. (Photo courtesy of Reuters).

In a column published in Arabic daily Al-Hayat as well as in France’s Le Monde, the French and British foreign criticized leaders who have sought a rapprochement with Assad by saying the regime leaders is using western fears about the advancement of ISIS, which has seized areas of northern and eastern Syria, to win back international support and some degree of legitimacy for his deadly regime. “Some seem sensitive to this argument,” Laurent Fabius and Philip Hammond wrote. “In reality, Bashar represents injustice, chaos and terror. We, France and Britain, say no to all three.” “For our own security, we must defeat Islamic State in Syria. We need a partner that can act against extremists. We need a negotiated political settlement,” Hammond and Fabius said.

“After 220,000 deaths and millions displaced, it is illusory to imagine that a majority of Syrians would accept to be ruled by the one who torments them,” Fabius and Hammond wrote. “To end their hopes of a better future in a Syria without Assad would be to radicalize even more Syrians, push moderates toward extremism and consolidate a jihadi bastion in Syria.”

In a rare show of political unity both current French president Francois Hollande and former President Nicolas Sarkozy condemned the trip, Sarkozy going as far as to refer to the MPs who made the trip as “clowns.” On Thursday President Francois Hollande condemned the French lawmakers for meeting with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, whom he calls a “dictator.” “I condemn this initiative. I condemn it because French lawmakers have taken it upon themselves to meet with a dictator who is the cause of one of the worst civil wars of recent years,” Hollande said while in the Philippines. Hollande argued that France cannot have a dialogue with a “dictator who has bombed his own people and who has used chemical weapons to destroy human lives, Syrian lives — the lives of children, women”.

Earlier French Prime Minister Manuel Valls also “condemned with the greatest strength” the decision by the French lawmakers to meet with Assad, whom he referred to as “a butcher”. “I want to condemn this initiative with the greatest strength,” Valls told French channel BFMTV. “For parliamentarians to go without warning to meet a butcher…. I think it was a moral failing.”

Like many western countries France cut ties with Syria after the regime began its brutal assault on members of the opposition which led to the country’s now four year old conflict. France cut diplomatic ties with Syria in 2012 and supports the moderate Syrian opposition, seeking the removal of Bashar Assad from power.

For more information please see:

The Daily Star: Lebanon – France, U.K. Dismiss Calls to Renew Relations with Assad – 28 February 2015

Reuters – France, Britain Dismiss Calls to Renew Relations with Syria’s Assad – 27 February 2015

The Independent: United Kingdom – Hollande and Sarkozy Round on ‘Clown’ MPs for Visiting Assad – 26 February 2015

The Local: France – Hollande Slams MPs over Talks with Syria’s Assad – 26 February 2015

Author: Impunity Watch Archive