EU eyes new Syria sanctions

Europe stepped up pressure on Syria as several nations recalled their ambassadors from Damascus and the EU considered new sanctions to cut the regime’s access to cash.
France, Italy, Spain and the Netherlands decided to bring back their envoys for consultations, joining Britain and Belgium to protest the regime’s relentless opposition crackdown. The United States has closed its embassy.
Paris denounced the “worsening repression” while Rome voiced the “firm condemnation and disgust of the Italian government for the unacceptable violence perpetrated by the regime in Damascus against the civilian population”.
Gulf states also decided to withdraw their envoys, while Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Ankara would launch a new initiative “with those countries who stand by the Syrian people, not the regime”.
Erdogan denounced Russia and China’s torpedoing of a UN resolution backed by the West and the Arab League as a “fiasco for the civilised world” which had handed Syrian President Bashar al-Assad a “licence to kill”.
“We cannot remain silent on what is happening in Syria and we cannot turn our backs on the Syrian people,” Erdogan said as regime tanks pounded the central city of Homs for a fourth straight day on Tuesday.
During a visit to Brussels, Turkey’s European affairs minister Egemen Bagis called on the international community to work together to put “an end to this massacre” and convince the regime to implement reforms.
The latest moves came as Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said after talks with Assad in Damascus that the Syrian leader was “fully committed” to ending the bloodshed.
French foreign ministry spokesman Bernard Valero said Lavrov should use Russia’s influence to make Damascus “understand its isolation” and support an Arab League plan aimed at ending the violence.
The 27-member EU began discussing new measures against Syria’s central bank and a ban on gold and gems after China and Russia vetoed a UN Security Council resolution backing the League plan at the weekend.
“There’s a long way to go yet, but we’re looking at economic measures which will tighten further the Syrian regime’s access to sources of finance,” a European diplomat said.
Another diplomat said the sanctions could target Syrian central bank transactions as well as a ban on the sale of gold and other precious metals — similar to measures taken against Iran last month