By Xinhua,
Jerusalem : Israel is calling on the European Union (EU) to rethink its ties with Syria, local daily The Jerusalem Post reported Wednesday.
Yossi Levy, Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman for Israeli media, was quoted as saying that Israel “regretted” EU’s intention to initialize an association agreement formalizing EU-Syrian ties.
Israel has urged the EU not to “act hastily toward reaching an agreement with Syria in a way that will grant them a gift they don’t deserve at this stage,” said the spokesman.
The EU and Syria has set to initial the association agreement on Dec. 14.
Levy said Syria had done nothing since 2004 to indicate that it was truly interested in peace or calm in the region, Levy said, adding “there is an unbearable discrepancy between what they say and what they do.”
“They speak about peace and tranquility, but supply Hezbollah with arms, host the headquarters of terrorist organizations in their capital and are engaged in various unsavory activities in the Middle East,” he accused.
On Tuesday, Ramiro Cibrian-Uzal, EU’s ambassador to Israel, said at a press briefing that the EU felt a need to respond to a number of positive Syrian moves, including its decision to establish formal diplomatic ties with Lebanon, participation in a July Mediterranean summit in Paris and the indirect peace talks with Israel in Turkey.
According to Cibrian-Uzal, the European Commission was currently updating a 2004 association agreement with Syria that was never signed.
After the agreement is initialed at a ceremony in Damascus in 11 days, it will be brought to the EU member states for approval and ratification, a process that needs a consensus of all member states.
The association agreement will anchor EU-Syrian ties and put Syria’s diplomatic relationship with the EU on par with the EU’s relationship with other Mediterranean countries, said EU officials, adding that the agreement formalizes and provides a channel for political dialogue.
The argument inside the EU in favor of the agreement is that there is a need to try and pull Syria westward, away from Iran, and that this type of agreement helps do that.
Israel signed its own association agreement with the EU in 2000,and is now in the process of further upgrading its relationship with the EU.
The EU-Syrian agreement is one of the issues high on Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni’s agenda for meetings with her counterparts in Brussels on Tuesday and Wednesday at a gathering of NATO foreign ministers, said The Jerusalem Post.