Syria. Photograph courtesy of Syria Freedom
French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius has said that France and Britain are prepared to start supplying arms to the Syrian rebels even without unanimous EU support.
Western countries have been slow to provide any weapons to the Syrian rebels in the ongoing civil war which today enters its third year. Both the US and UK have provided non-military aid to the rebels, with the UK announcing only last week that they will provide flack jackets and armoured vehicles in an attempt to slow the bloodshed.
Now both Paris and London will call for bringing the date of the next EU meeting on the Syrian arms embargo forward, and may decide to arm the rebels even without unanimous agreement from the other EU member states.
Most of the weaponry that has been delivered to arm the rebels up until now has been provided by regional players such as Qatar and Saudi Arabia, although these weapons have often gone to hardline Islamist rebel groups such as Jabhat al-Nusra. These Islamist rebel groups have offered many of the victories against the Assad regime, and have caused many rebels to move from supporting the non-religious Free Syrian Army (FSA) to join their ranks.
The hope of the French and British governments is that by supplying weapons to the FSA in the conflict, they may be able to sway fighters away from supporting these Islamist groups, which could help with the rebuilding and unifying of Syria after the fall of Assad as discussed recently on these pages.
This news comes as a UN aid official has said that total number of Syrian refugees fleeing the conflict to neighbouring countries rose by ten percent in the last week alone.
