Ban Syrian oil, Hague urges EU in reaction to crackdown

BRITAIN is urging the European Union to ban the import of Syrian oil by all 27 member states in a new effort to step up the pressure on president Bashar al-Assad, Foreign Secretary William Hague revealed yesterday.

The UK and others are also working on a new United Nations Security Council resolution against Syria, Mr Hague told reporters on the sidelines of the international meeting in Paris on the Libyan crisis.

Mr Hague said there was “a real prospect that we will agree sanctions on the sale of oil into the European Union,” and that the plan would be discussed at a weekend EU meeting in Poland.

The UN estimates 2,200 people have been killed during Syria’s crackdown on anti-government protesters, which has lasted for months.

The EU said two weeks ago it planned to slap sweeping new sanctions on Syria, including an embargo on oil imports. This would bring the 27-nation bloc in line with the latest American moves to isolate Mr Assad, including a ban on the import of Syrian fuel or related products.

Italy, France, the Netherlands and Germany are the largest customers for Syrian oil in the EU, a trade worth around £2 billion a year to Damascus. Royal Dutch Shell is the second-largest foreign oil producer in Syria after France’s Total, producing 7.3 million barrels of oil in 2010.

Looming sanctions have had a very limited impact on oil markets so far as Syria’s exports of 150,000 barrels per day and imports of oil products are only a fraction of Libya’s pre-war shipments, the loss of which six month ago rocked the markets.

However, Mr Assad’s regime relies heavily on the revenues the sector creates, which account for around 25 per cent of all its income. Crude oil exports are sold exclusively by the Syrian state-owned oil company Sytrol.

Russia has so far frustrated attempts to include asset freezes in a proposed UN resolution on sanctions and last week introduced a rival UN resolution that does not include sanctions.

“It’s totally regrettable [the] UN hasn’t been able to put forward a combined resolution properly on Syria,” Prime Minister David Cameron said last night in an interview with Al-Jazeera television. “What Assad is doing to his people is disgraceful. It’s appalling and totally unacceptable.”

Mr Cameron said Libyan dictator Colonel Muammar al-Gaddafi’s flight from Tripoli as rebels seized the city should be a source of worry for Mr Assad in Damascus. “If every dictator feels a little bit less safe after what’s happened in Libya then that’s a good thing.”

The attorney-general of the Syrian city of Hama – who authorities reported on Monday had been kidnapped by gunmen – has said he has resigned because security forces killed 72 jailed protesters and activists at Hama’s central jail on 31 July.

He said at least another 420 people were killed in a military assault and were buried in mass graves in public parks.

“I, Judge Adnan Mohammad al-Bakkour, Hama province attorney-general, declare that I have resigned in protest of the savage regime’s practices against peaceful demonstrators,” he said in a video released by activists.

The official state news agency insisted that Mr Bakkour had been kidnapped.

“The kidnappers forced the attorney general to present false information. The channels have become a partner in the terrorist crimes against innocent Syrian citizens,” it quoted Hama governor Anas Naem as saying.