Italy decides to appoint ambassador to Syria

The Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani announced on Friday that his country has decided to appoint an ambassador to Syria “to turn a spotlight” on the country, as he said.

The decision makes Italy the first G7 nation to relaunch its diplomatic mission in Damascus since the crisis erupted in the country.

Stefano Ravagnan, currently the foreign ministry’s special envoy for Syria, was named as ambassador. He is due to take up his post shortly, Tajani told Reuters.

Italy and seven other EU states, including Austria, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Greece, Croatia, Slovenia and Slovakia, last week sent a letter to the bloc’s foreign policy chief Josep Borrell, asking the European Union “to play a more active role in Syria in the light of the diffucult humanitarian situation in the country”.

“Borrell mandated the European External Action Service to study what can be done,” Tajani said on Friday, adding that naming a new ambassador was “in line with the letter we sent to Borrel … to turn the spotlight on Syria”.

The European Union, like the United States, has imposed sanctions on the Syrian people since 2011 in flagrant violation of the most basic human rights and principles of international law. The Union renews these unilateral and illegal coercive measures annually, justifying them with lies about the situation in Syria.

Syria holds the EU and the United States fully responsible for the humanitarian suffering and the difficult living conditions of the Syrians.