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EU foreign policy chief meets Syrian gov’t envoy for talks

Bashar al-Jaafari, Syrian chief negotiator and Ambassador of the Permanent Representative Mission of the Syria to UN New York, briefs to the media after a round of negotiations between the Syrian government and UN Special Envoy of the Secretary-General for Syria Staffan de Mistura, at the European headquarters of the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland,Wednesday March 23, 2016. (Salvatore Di Nolfi/Keystone via AP)
Bashar al-Jaafari, Syrian chief negotiator and Ambassador of the Permanent Representative Mission of the Syria to UN New York, briefs to the media after a round of negotiations between the Syrian government and UN Special Envoy of the Secretary-General for Syria Staffan de Mistura, at the European headquarters of the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland,Wednesday March 23, 2016. (Salvatore Di Nolfi/Keystone via AP) Bashar al-Jaafari, Syrian chief negotiator and Ambassador of the Permanent Representative Mission of the Syria to UN New York, briefs to the media after a round of negotiations between the Syrian government and UN Special Envoy of the Secretary-General for Syria Staffan de Mistura, at the European headquarters of the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland,Wednesday March 23, 2016. (Salvatore Di Nolfi/Keystone via AP)

By Associated Press 2 min read

GENEVA (AP) – The European Union’s foreign policy chief held a rare meeting Wednesday with a top Syrian official to help achieve a political transition in the country where the Islamic State group holds vast territory.

Federica Mogherini said she only discussed “support to the U.N.-led process” in the talks with Bashar Ja’afari in Geneva aimed at ending the Syrian civil war. The war has led to a refugee crisis in Europe and given an opening to IS.

“Not all exchanges were consensual,” Mogherini said, adding that she didn’t discuss the terrorism fight or a possible end to EU sanctions against Syrian officials.

She declined to reiterate the EU’s previous insistence that Syrian President Bashar Assad leave power, but said its policy hadn’t changed.

Ja’afari, the Syrian government’s U.N. ambassador, said afterward that it was his first meeting with Mogherini. He said the Brussels attacks had “opened the eyes of the Europeans for the necessity of reading the map again carefully, and giving priority to countering terrorism.”