Italy appoints ambassador to Syria 'to turn spotlight' on country

Italy has decided to appoint an ambassador to Syria “to turn a spotlight” on the country, its foreign minister said on Friday, as countries end their decade-long estrangement from the government in Damascus.

Stefano Ravagnan, currently the Italian Foreign Ministry's special envoy for Syria, was named as ambassador. He is scheduled to take up his post shortly, Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani told Reuters.

Mr Tajani announced Rome’s intention to re-establish diplomatic ties with Syria to prevent Russia from monopolising diplomatic efforts in the Middle Eastern country, the Associated Press reported.

Moscow has been a leading ally for Syrian President Bashar Al Assad, deploying force to help Syria's military retake territory from rebel groups. Russia has also re-focused diplomatic efforts in the Middle East following its ostracisation by the European Union after the February 2022 invasion of Ukraine.

Italy’s latest move might lead to disagreement with some of its western allies: none of Italy’s partners in the G7 group of nations – the United States, Japan, Britain, Canada, France and Germany – have restored ties with Mr Assad.

Rising anti-immigrant sentiment and economic crises have prompted some other EU nations to suggest that Syrians who sought refuge within the bloc should return home.

In recent years, Denmark declared some parts of Syria safe, threatening refugees from those areas with forced returns.

Italy may have been motivated by an aim to influence wider EU policy on Syria, a human rights observer said.

“Italy has taken this step with the aim of shaking the EU out of its lack of policy for Syria,” said Veronica Bellintani, an Italian international law expert who has worked extensively on Syria.

“Italy says that it is taking this step to put back a spotlight on the country: if that's the intent, the spotlight should be on the ongoing violations, on the hundreds of thousands of individuals still detained and disappeared and crimes against humanity committed by the Syrian regime in the past decade.”

Reports by the United Nations and organisations including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have said that Syria is not safe and that people who return face significant risks.

“Internally, arbitrary detention, enforced disappearance, torture and death in detention continue while violence and insecurity plague different parts of the country and the economy flatlines,” said Paulo Pinheiro, chairman of the UN’s Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Syria, in remarks earlier this month.

Like other western and Arab countries, Italy suspended diplomatic relations with Damascus over repression of anti-government protests in 2011 and 2012. It recalled all staff from its embassy in Damascus in 2012.

The uprisings became a civil war, and also drew in foreign powers including Iran, Russia, Turkey and the US. More than 500,000 people have been killed in the conflict, which has displaced more than half of the country’s pre-war population of 23 million.

Middle East nations who severed ties with Damascus, including the UAE, have restored diplomatic relations in recent years. Last year, Syria was readmitted to the Arab League, as countries in the region sought to tackle drug smuggling and manage refugee populations.

Turkey, a long-standing supporter of rebels against the Syrian government, has recently suggested it would be open to talking to the Syrian leader.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said he would extend an invitation to Mr Assad to meet in Turkey.

Turkish officials recently denied reports that a meeting would take place in Moscow, although Russian President Vladimir Putin is likely to play a key role in any rapprochement between the neighbouring countries.

Syria is currently carved up into areas of control under different groups: the Syrian government controls most territory, with Turkey-backed opposition groups and Islamists operating in pockets of the north-west, and US-backed Kurdish groups in the north-west.

Mr Tajani said the appointment of an ambassador was in line with a letter sent to EU foreign affairs minister Josep Borrell by Italy and seven other EU nations asking the bloc to play a more active role in Syria.

“Syrians continue to leave in large numbers, putting additional strain on neighbouring countries, in a period when tension in the area is running high, risking new refugee waves,” the letter said.

It is not clear that re-establishing ties with the Syrian government will stem refugee flows to Europe. Many Syrians say that the reason they fled the country was to escape the Damascus government.