00:00U.S. President Donald Trump has said that due to the ongoing war in the Middle East,
00:04Iran has been, quote, obliterated and the, quote, powerful military campaign in Iran
00:09would continue. Now, the war began just days after President Donald Trump's Board of Peace
00:14convened for the very first time in Washington, D.C., to discuss the reconstruction of Gaza.
00:20For more, Euronews' Maret Gwynne-Jones sat down with the EU Commissioner for the Mediterranean,
00:24that's Dubravka Suisa, who was actually physically in D.C. for that occasion.
00:28And Maret started by asking the Commissioner if the Board of Peace was a credible body or not.
00:33It's hard to say whether it's credible or not, but at that moment it was meant for the reconstruction
00:39of Gaza. And I think regardless of this situation development in the Middle East, we shouldn't
00:46forget Gaza. And I think we have to concentrate on Gaza because the situation remains dire and
00:53even worse in Gaza as we speak now. So we have to continue working for them.
00:58Yet the charter, so the mandates that President Trump has drafted for the Board, does not make
01:04one mention of Gaza. And the European Commission itself is questioning whether this is in line
01:11with the UN Charter, for example, whether it contradicts the UN Charter. So given all of that,
01:16do you think that the Board is credible? Again, if I may ask you that question.
01:21The invitation for the Board of Peace was received by President von der Leyen and I was representing
01:27her at that meeting. So it doesn't mean that we legitimized this Board. We were there as we were
01:35just observing what was going on. This was a good occasion for me as Commissioner to meet all the
01:40ministers from the region. For me, it was a good moment to meet all of them at one place. But
01:46at the
01:47same time, we are not in line with some of the Board of Peace rules or procedure with the scope
01:55and
01:56the different issues so that we are not members. We are just there. We were there for courtesy reasons.
02:03So finally on this, will you continue to attend any meeting that are specifically related to the
02:09situation? We will decide on case by case basis. Okay. So obviously there is a war now that is
02:16threatening to spill over into the wider Middle East. You as Commissioner, you're responsible for
02:22relations with some of these countries. How does this war affect your work and the cooperation with
02:28the countries such as Lebanon that are directly affected by the conflict? So the situation is
02:33developing as we speak. So we have to adapt to the situation. It's also very difficult to start working
02:41on Middle East strategy at the moment because the situation develops. But we have to be active,
02:49we have to be engaged, and we want to be engaged. This is the very reason why this portfolio exists,
02:54because President von der Leyen wanted us to be present and to be not only passive spectators,
03:00but to be players in the region. At this moment, unfortunately, we are mostly payers. We are paying a lot
03:07and our
03:08influence is not that huge. But we want to increase our influence in the region and globally.
03:15Part of this region that you also oversee as well is obviously Israel. Do you support now the French calls
03:22for that they broker talks between Israel and Lebanon to come to a kind of settlement?
03:29For us, only dialogue, only de-escalation and only diplomacy work. And this is my position,
03:36and this is the position of the European Commission. I can say three Ds, dialogue, diplomacy and de-escalation.
03:43And I support, of course, this. Unfortunately, the proxies, Iranian proxies, Hezbollah started
03:48this, and then it was, if I may say, returned by Israeli strikes, which is not good for the people
03:59of Lebanon, not good for anyone in the region. If I may, you say diplomacy. Can you really push for
04:06that,
04:06given the situation that we're seeing today, where we're not seeing any diplomacy? It's just a conflict.
04:12Yeah, but we are not supporting any conflict. We are really, we are calling everyone, all the forces
04:18there to de-escalate, because it doesn't bring anyone, anything good. First people of the region,
04:25but also globally, Europe, to Europe, there is an impact, but there is also impact on the whole world.
04:32If you look at energy prices or crisis, you see what's going on in the world, and this will,
04:39this won't be easy to return to the zero position as it was before this conflict, because the impact is
04:47huge, especially on oil, but also on other sources of energy. And looking at Iran,
04:53is there anything that you can do as commissioner to support the Iranian people? We are the only one
04:59in the world who is, who was, and who has been, and who is supporting at this moment civil society
05:04organizations in Iran, because we didn't have any bilateral connections with the government,
05:13but with civil society organizations via our implementing partners on the ground. So there,
05:19we are, we have been doing a lot for Afghan people who are refugees in Iran, if you know,
05:24it's more than a hundred million euros, which we invested in civil society organizations as of 2021.
05:31So this is what we can do at the moment, and this is what we have been doing. So helping
05:36people
05:36through non-governmental organizations.
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