The European Union offered fresh aid Monday to Syria's opposition, easing an EU oil embargo in favour of the rebels fighting President Bashar al-Assad, but stopping short of supplying offensive weapons. In a new signal of support, EU foreign ministers meeting in Luxembourg formally adopted measures enabling EU companies on a case-by-case basis to import Syrian crude and export oil production technology and investment cash to areas in the hands of the opposition.
"We want regions controlled by the opposition to develop, we want to help economic reconstruction," said German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle on arriving for the talks. "People will see there is a real alternative to the Assad regime exists."
This first easing in two years of harsh sanctions against Damascus aims to help tilt the balance in the conflict but is a response to complaints by the civilian population that international sanctions are harming ordinary Syrians more than they are the regime, EU sources said. Though Syria was not a leading exporter of crude, the EU's 2011 sanctions deprived Damascus of much needed cash. Sales of crude provided up to a third of Syria's hard currency earnings, with the EU buying 95 percent of it.
British Foreign Secretary William Hague said as he stepped into the meeting with counterparts that there "is now a humanitarian catastrophe in Syria" and that "this should remain top of our agenda." Yet worries persist across the 27-nation bloc about the ability of the divided opposition to prevent assistance of any kind from falling into the wrong hands.
Hardline Islamist rebels - including the al Qaeda-linked Al-Nusra group - notably are in at least partial control of Syria's largest oil reserves in Deir Ezzor in the east and Hassaka in the north-east. Washington this weekend refused to arm the opposition at a "Friends of Syria" meeting in Istanbul and the same question is expected to again divide EU nations behind closed doors at Monday's talks.