“L’Europe est avec la France et le peuple français.” The High Representative Federica Mogherini expressed her grief last night soon after the terrorist attacks in Paris and again this morning, when she arrived in Vienna for the second round of talks on a political solution for the crisis in Syria. “It is another sad day,” Mogherini told the media. “The meeting we are having here in Vienna should take another kind of meaning.”

The attacks in Paris – she said – follow the bombings in Lebanon earlier this week, the crash of a Russian plane in Egypt and the attacks in Turkey a few weeks ago: “We are together in this: Europeans and Arabs, East and West”. She highlighted “the responsibility to unite ourselves, against those who want to divide us; to build, against those who want to destroy.” In this context, she concluded, there is no alternative for the international community to be united in “dealing with the conflict in our region, starting from this terrible war in Syria.”

The meeting in Vienna comes two weeks after a first round of talks on Syria. At the previous gathering on 30 October, for the first time all key regional and international actors – including Iran and Saudi Arabia – sat at the same table to discuss a political transition in the war-torn country.

#ParisAttacks Another sad day #SyriaTalks Meeting here in Vienna takes another kind of meaning @FedericaMog https://t.co/nyTCiMgCUH

— EU External Action (@eu_eeas) November 14, 2015