Following a much-awaited meeting with her EU counterparts in Brussels, Kaja Kallas, the bloc’s head of foreign policy, told reporters that the EU will discuss “further measures” on how to suspend its association agreement with Tel Aviv at its next meeting in July if Israel doesn’t “improve the situation” in Gaza.
Kallas says, “changing the situation on the ground is our first goal.” “If things don’t get better, we can talk about other options and return in July. There were “indications” that Israel would violate its human rights duties under Article 2 of the EU-Israel association agreement, according to an eight-page analysis of the deal that Kallas provided to the ministers a few days before to her speech.
However, the gathering also occurred in the midst of previously unheard-of Middle East tensions, almost twenty-four hours after the United States joined Israel in striking Iran’s nuclear installations and striking three military targets in Iran.
Israel also criticised the EU-Israel Association Agreement review, saying in a letter to the EU that Euronews obtained that “this report and its conclusions should not be taken seriously or used as a basis for any future actions or conversations.”
The war in Gaza and Iran are two different issues, according to diplomats, but the US military intervention has made Europeans even more uncertain, with some “scrambling to see how to react,” one diplomat said.
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