Syria blasts US for sanctions, following UN expert’s remarks
Syria on
Saturday lambasted the U.S. government for sanctions it has imposed on
Damascus, following a U.N. special rapporteur’s statement that called on
Washington to remove unilateral sanctions against the war-torn country.
The Syrian
Foreign Ministry described U.S. sanctions against the country as equal to
“crimes against humanity” that impact the life of normal citizens as the
country looks to rebuild after 10 years of civil war.
The U.S. has
imposed sanctions for years on Syrian President Bashar Assad and a number of
his top officials. Measures that went into effect in June will also allow U.S.
authorities to target foreign companies that do business with some Syrian state
institutions.
On Tuesday,
U.N. human rights expert Alena Douhan called on the United States to lift its
unilateral sanctions “which may inhibit rebuilding of Syria’s civilian
infrastructure” destroyed by the conflict that has killed about half a million
people.
Douhan, who
is the U.N. special rapporteur on the negative impact of unilateral coercive
measures on human rights, said American sanctions “violate the human rights of
the Syrian people.”
Speaking on
Wednesday, the U.S. Special Envoy for Syria Joel Rayburn rejected Douhan’s
statement as “misguided and false.”
He said that
the blame for Syria’s economic situation and humanitarian crisis falls on
“Assad’s brutal war against the Syrian people, not on U.S. sanctions.”
Areas under
government control in Syria have been suffering from a severe shortage of bread
and fuel that Damascus blames on Washington. In some areas, people have to
stand in line for hours outside bakeries to get bread, the main staple in the
country.
