The US has welcomed the EU’s decision to lift an arms embargo on Syria, as a show of “full support” for rebels fighting against President Assad. At the same the White House has opposed Russian sales of S-300 missiles to Syria, calling it “a mistake”.
The State Department has called for an end of the embargo on shipment of arms to rebels,
saying that this step “gives the flexibility of specific EU
member states to support the opposition as they see fit,”
acting State Department deputy spokesperson Patrick Ventrell said
at the briefing on Tuesday.
At the same time, for President Bashar Assad this should be a
message “that support for the opposition is only going to
increase”, Ventrell said.
As the United States has so far provided only non-lethal aid to
Syrian rebels, Ventrell said the new decision “allows others
to continue to accelerate that assistance to the opposition.”
The State Department has stressed that it will not change its
policy based on the EU’s decision.
Ventrell reiterated America’s position, saying that it opposes
Russia selling anti-aircraft missiles to the Assad regime.
“We think that’s a mistake. They’ve described it as fulfilling
existing contracts,” he said, then assuring that the US
government will “continue to work with them [Russia].”
The comments came after Russia criticized the EU lifted its arms
embargo, with diplomats branding the move as an “example of
double standards”. Russia insists that its own sale of arms
to the Syrian government may help restrain warmongers.
However, it has neither confirmed, nor denied “the status of
those shipments” Russia is carrying out under a contract
signed with Syria several years ago.
Moscow has been asserting its right to ship S-300 batteries,
maintaining that it does not violate international law.
Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov lambasted the EU’s latest
move as “an illegitimate” decision.
“This is an illegitimate decision, in principle, to discuss
seriously on official level the issue of supplying or not
supplying arms to non-state actors is contrary to all norms of
international law,” Lavrov said.
He recalled negotiations on the text of the Global Arms Trade
Treaty, which read that “arms should be supplied to
governments and only with requirement of an end-user
certificate”.
“I don’t know which end-user certificate the Syrian opposition
can give to exporters from Europe,” Lavrov added.
The Syrian government has slammed the easing of the EU’s embargo
as an “obstruction of efforts to resolve the conflict in the
country peacefully”.
The country’s Foreign Ministry has accused the Union of giving
“support and encouragement to terrorists by providing them
with weapons in clear violation of international law and the UN
Charter.”
Despite Britain and France having made a commitment not to
deliver arms to the Syrian opposition “at this stage,” the
UK’s Foreign Secretary William Hague has not ruled out arming the
rebels before August 1, saying that Britain now has the right to
do so.
This article originally appeared on: RT