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Syria may face Turkish sanctions after AL ones

29 November 2011 19:59 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. Syria is likely to be slammed with a new round of sanctions by Turkey, two days after the Arab League (AL) decided to impose Damascus with economic sanctions that was seen by the government as targeting the livelihood of Syrians, APA reports quoting Xinhua.

Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu told a press conference in Ankara on Tuesday that the Turkish sanctions against Syria were ready and would be announced after he meets with President Abdullah Gul and Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

The Turkish-Syrian relations have hit a new low recently over the unrest in Syria, with the Turkish side accuses the Syrian administration of atrocities against its people, while Damascus accuses Ankara of harboring and arming terrorist groups against the rule of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Turkey has already hosted leaders of the so-called Free Syrian Army (SFA), which is a group of alleged Syrian army defectors. The SFA has recently claimed responsibility for many attacks carried out against governmental and army sites in Syria.

For its part, the AL on Monday hit Syria with economic sanctions after Damascus missed the deadline to sign a draft plan to allow hundreds of observers into the country as part of a peace deal Syria had agreed on early this month. However, Syria said the draft protocol represent an encroachment against Syriaâ€™s sovereignty, and accuses the AL of acting out a foreign agenda for the interests of the United States and its European allies.

The AL sanctions included freezing the Syrian governmentâ€™s funds, halting the commercial business with the Syrian government except strategic commodities that affect peopleâ€™s life, as well as suspending flights to Syria.

The resolution was backed by 19 members of the 22-nation regional body, except Iraq and Lebanon, two neighboring countries of Syria.

Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem said the AL was pushing, via its recent decisions, to internationalize the Syrian crisis, noting that the AL sanctions demonstrate their premeditated intention for escalation in Syria.

Al-Moallem said that the Syrians might be affected for a while with the sanctions, but he stressed that Syria is a self- sufficient country.

Meanwhile, although Syrian Minister of Economy Mohammad Nidhal al-Chaar said the sanctions are a "dangerous precedent that would eventually have profound impacts on the Syrian citizen," he told local media that they "devote the need to strengthen the national economy by depending on the countryâ€™s economic sources," indicating that Syria enjoys unparallel self-sufficiency.

Economic observers expect that the Syrian economy would shrink by more than 3 percent by the end of the year owing to the European and U.S. sanctions that have teamed with the Arab ones.

Meanwhile, Syriaâ€™s Minister of Information Adnan Mahmoud said that the government discussed Tuesday the necessary measures to be undertaken to deal with the negative impacts of the AL economic sanctions and its reflection of the national economy.

Mahmoud pointed out that the government stressed on its commitment to provide the necessary needs of the Syrians, adding that there is self-sufficiency of basic commodities which allay the fears of the Syrian citizens. He also said that there is a tendency to look for alternative markets to export and sell the Syrian goods and secure the Syrian marketsâ€™ needs.

Trade between Syria and the Arab countries has been estimated by billions of Syrian pounds in 2009. Syriaâ€™s imports from the Arab nations amount to 16.4 percent out of its total imports, while its exports to them pose 52.5 percent of the total Syrian exports.

While the crescendo of threats and sanctions on Syria drags on, Russia, a key ally to Syria, announced Tuesday its rejection to the ultimatum-like words on the Syrian issue and expressed rejection to any arms embargo imposed on Syria, stressing that it would try to avoid a repeat of the Libyan scenario in the country.

"The Syrian problem requires the same approach, as ultimatum which some states try to use, including members of the Arab League, cannot resolve this problem," Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said.

"We hope our friends in the Arab League ... will show maximum responsibility for what is going on in the region ... and they will observe the same rules the Arab League worked out, while making relevant decisions," Lavrov said.