The Diplomat
After the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, declared yesterday on TVE that Spain, in line with what was expressed by the EU High Representative for Foreign Policy, Kaja Kallas, will support that any solution in Syria “be peaceful” and “that the territorial integrity” of the country be maintained, avoiding “a kind of balkanization of different regions in the hands of different groups”.
After the seizure of Damascus by the insurgents of the Levant Liberation Organization and the flight of the Syrian president, Albares pointed out that “in the end, geopolitics and foreign policy are based on concrete realities. And the concrete reality is the control that this new group is extending throughout Syria”, where the situation is ‘calm’.
“When I spoke with the Chargé d’Affaires of the Spanish Embassy in Damascus, he told me that the situation is calm, as it has been in the rest of the cities that have been occupied by the new insurgent group and that everything indicates that there will not be a disbandment of the administration but collaboration with this government,” added the head of the Spanish diplomacy.
On the other hand, the minister assured that his department has prepared an “emergency” plan to evacuate Spaniards who wish to leave Syria as soon as the land or air borders are opened. However, he clarified that of the nine residents -five Spanish women married to Syrians and four aid workers- only one has asked to leave the country.
There are also a hundred Syrian-Spaniards who have not expressed their desire to leave the country, according to Albares. In any case, “as soon as the airport and the border are reopened, we will analyze the situation again,” said Albares, who said he is “very much in contact” with European partners and “Arab friends” in the region.
