Doorstep remarks by High Representative / Vice-President Federica Mogherini ahead of the meeting of International Syria Support Group

 The fact that the International [Syria] Support  Group is meeting today to try to call all the actors to stick to the commitments we all made in December, including the support of the talks, including the commitment to a ceasefire, including the commitment to confidence-building measures and humanitarian access, is extremely important.

This is the chance for the process to not only be protected, but also to continue and deliver. Let me say this is not just for the sake of diplomacy or for the sake of geopolitics. This is for the sake of human lives. We are not talking about numbers here. We are talking about people. People who have been suffering from a war for five years now and who have found again in the last weeks a small glimpse of hope and we have the responsibility to keep that hope alive, to protect their lives and today this is what we will try to do. 

It will not be an easy meeting. It will be a very important meeting and the future of Syria and Syrians is in our hands and we have all, as international community, the responsibility to protect these lives. 

 I am now going to have a coordination meeting with Staffan de Mistura. The European Union supports his efforts in a very substantial way. It is not just words, it is working together, day by day, and we wish that all others are ready to do the same. Then I will have a bilateral with Sergey Lavrov and then we will go for the meeting of the [International Support Syria] Group.

Q: On the message to deliver to Foreign Minister Lavrov. 

My message will be exactly the one that I just mentioned now. All parties have to stick to their own commitments. We all decided in December in New York that in parallel with the political talks in Geneva that we would have been facilitating a ceasefire and confidence building measures, humanitarian access especially to the Syrians that have been under siege. This has to happen immediately. It is not an issue of conditions or pre-conditions. This is an issue of commitments we all took and that we have to respect. This is a Security Council resolution unanimously adopted for the first time after five years. So it is in the interest of all sitting around the table to take this commitment for serious. 

Q: On NATO’s decision on refugees announced today. 

Concerning the NATO decision on migration and refugees, I was in contact today with the Secretary General of NATO, Jens Stoltenberg. We are coordinating. It is very important that all different actors can do all that is in their power to facilitate the management of the flow. And we are already coordinating on this. 

Thank you and I will meet you probably afterwards. 

Link to the video: http://ec.europa.eu/avservices/video/player.cfm?ref=I116206