Politico
The European Parliament said a trip by several of its members to Syria to meet President Bashar al-Assad is the politicians’ “own responsibility” and rejected claims Parliament will pay for their expenses.
Estonian MEP Yana Toom, Spanish MEP Javier Couso Permuy, the vice chair of the foreign affairs committee, and Latvian MEP Tatjana Ždanoka traveled to Damascus to meet Assad on Sunday as part of a working visit to Syria. They also traveled to Beirut, Lebanon.
“This is not an official visit from the European Parliament or any of its official bodies, and the expenditures are not being paid by the EP,” Marjory van den Broeke, the Parliament’s spokesperson, told Estonian broadcaster ERR.
Toom’s assistant confirmed that plane tickets and hotel expenses were paid by the MEP herself, while the Syrian government paid for the hotel in Damascus.
Some politicians have criticized the trip as inappropriate.
The chairman of the Estonian parliamentary foreign affairs committee, Sven Mikser, said the trip was “without a doubt unacceptable.”
Assad is a person who is accused of very serious war crimes and with whom respectable politicians most certainly do not communicate. Assad absolutely cannot be a part of a long-term solution to the civil war in Syria,” Mikser said.