Middle East Monitor reported today that Italy has appointed an ambassador to Syria. It is the first European nation to do so since the United States and NATO clamped rigid sanctions on the country, and U.S. forces occupied one-third of it, in an attempt to terminate Bashar al-Assad’s government. Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani announced that Stefano Ravagnan—currently the special envoy of the Foreign Ministry for Syria—will be the ambassador and “will take up his post soon.”
Italy had recalled all its diplomatic personnel from Syria in 2012, and maintained its isolation and sanctions since, along with NATO as a whole, “whipped on” by the United States Congress with its Caesar sanctions law.
