Arab ministers gathered in Cairo yesterday to draw up sanctions against Syria to punish President Bashar al-Assad’s regime for defying an ultima-tum to allow in observers and pressing a deadly crackdown.
The crackdown has cost more than 3,500 lives since March
The finance ministers were to thrash out a package – expected to include the suspension of flights and freezing of government assets – which will be put to foreign ministers today.
Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said he would join today’s meeting to harmonise his government’s measures with those of the Arab League, saying that Ankara’s former ally had missed its “last chance” by failing to heed the Arab ultimatum.
But Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari, whose country has close economic ties with Syria and a large refugee community in its western neighbour, said it was “not possible” to impose sanctions on Assad’s regime.
The Arab League had set a Friday deadline for Damascus to agree to the details of the observers’ mission, part of a reform deal Syria had previously said it accepted.
Davutoglu, whose government has expressed outrage at the mounting bloodshed in its southern neighbour that saw at least 16 people killed on Friday, said Syria’s refusal to allow in observers could only mean it had something to hide.
“Syria was expected to say yes to the observers... unless there is a reality it hides about the situation in Syrian cities,” Davutoglu said after the deadline expired.
“As it said no, it increased... the concerns on the humanitarian situation,” he said, in the wake of UN estimates that the crackdown has cost more than 3,500 lives since March. Ankara already has some measures in hand against Damascus, including a suspension of joint oil exploration and a threat to halt power exports.
“We are going to harmonise them with those prepared by the Arab League,” Turkey’s Anatolia news agency quoted Davutoglu as saying.
But Iraq, which abstained when the Arab League voted earlier this month to suspend Syria and threaten sanctions, expressed its strong reservations about the proposed package.
“It is not possible, in the opinion of Iraq, to impose economic sanctions on Syria,” Zebari told reporters in the Iraqi shrine city of Najaf.
“We announce our reservation on this issue,” he said, although it was not immediately clear if he meant Baghdad would refuse to enforce any economic sanctions agreed by the Arab League.
President Jalal Talabani said Iraq was afraid extremists might take over in Syria if Assad’s regime falls, according to a statement on the presidential website yesterday.
“We are worried about the alternative... we are afraid of the extremist party, if it replaces the old,” Talabani said in an interview with Iraqiya television, the statement said.
“We are afraid that if extremist forces come to power, they would be hostile to democracy, and hostile to Iraq.”
Syria depends on its Arab neighbours for half of its exports and a quarter of its imports.
Were the 22-nation bloc to impose serious economic sanctions, the impact would be crippling for a country already a facing a raft of punitive measures from the EU and the US.
“If that is to happen, it will be very unfortunate because the damage will be to all sides,” Syrian Economy Minister Mohammed Nidal al-Shaar told AFP in an exclusive interview.