Damascus: Syrian President Bashar Al Assad met on Wednesday with French parliamentarians, the first such meeting since France closed its embassy in 2012 and announced that Syria’s leader had lost all legitimacy.
The trip was not approved by the French parliament’s foreign affairs committee, and the Foreign Ministry said it did not support the mission.
Many European diplomats are saying privately it is time for communication with Damascus after a four-year revolt failed to overthrow Al Assad.
Syria’s state news agency said the meeting had focused on “challenges facing Arab and European regions, particularly with regard to terrorism”.
It paraphrased Al Assad as saying Syria “always encourages cooperation between states as the most effective way to stop the expansion of terrorism and eliminate it”.
More than 200,000 people have died in a civil war that began when peaceful pro-democracy protests were met by Al Assad with force of arms. Islamist militants have grown to be the most powerful insurgent force.
The four-man delegation, which returned to France on Thursday, was led by Gerard Bapt of the ruling Socialist Party and included members of the lower and upper houses of parliament. Lawmaker Jacques Myard, who has in the past accused Paris of blindly following US policy, confirmed that the meeting had taken place on Wednesday morning.
“Coming here does not mean we back what’s happened,” he told BFM TV. “The objective is to understand Al Assad’s regime better, because we don’t believe we can fight Daesh without Syria.”
He said certain countries that France considered allies in the region were not playing their part in the battle against Islamist militants.
A French diplomatic source said the visit was considered a private one, and that the Foreign Ministry had not been consulted: “France’s position is clear. We do not talk to Al Assad or his clique.”
While Britain, France and the United States all remain publicly opposed to a rapprochement, the Syrian government has repeatedly called for international cooperation to fight Islamist militancy, and has allowed the United States to lead air attacks against Daesh in northern Syria and Iraq.
In France, some government and opposition lawmakers have begun to criticise Paris’s stance, as have former officials and some diplomats in private.
