USA: Secretary of State Hillary Clinton urges nations to cut Syria energy and arms ties

Record ID: 278963

  • Title: USA: Secretary of State Hillary Clinton urges nations to cut Syria energy and arms ties
  • Date: 13th August 2011
  • Summary: WASHINGTON D.C. UNITED STATES (AUGUST 12, 2011) (REUTERS) U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE HILLARY CLINTON AND NORWEGIAN FOREIGN MINISTER JONAS GAHR STOERE WALKING INTO BRIEFING ROOM (SOUNDBITE) (English) U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE HILARY CLINTON, SAYING: "We urge those countries still buying Syrian oil and gas, those countries still sending Assad weapons, those countries whose polit
  • Embargoed: 28th August 2011 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Usa, Usa
  • Country: USA
  • Topics: International Relations,Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVA4PL8G0M9BEC1TZJVWALYZMD3V
  • Story Text: U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on Friday (August 12) Syria clearly would be better off without President Bashar al-Assad and called on nations that buy oil or sell arms to Syria to cut those ties.
    "We urge those countries still buying Syrian oil and gas, those countries still sending Assad weapons, those countries whose political and economic support give him comfort in his brutality, to get on the right side of history," she told reporters after a meeting with Norwegian Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Store.
    Syria's oil industry, with which the Assad has close links, generates most of the state's hard currency from crude output of 380,000 barrels per day.
    While Syria exports crude oil, its refinery capacity is not sufficient to meet domestic demand for fuel. Trading sources said Swiss oil traders Vitol and Trafigura agreed to supply state firm Sytrol with 60,000 tons of gasoline this week.
    But there is little prospect of Western states putting teeth into the sanctions on Assad by targeting Syria's oil because of vested commercial interests against doing so.
    On Wednesday (August 10), Washington imposed sanctions on Syria's largest bank and its biggest mobile telephone company, controlled by Assad's cousin Rami Makhlouf. The next day, U.S. Ambassador to Damascus Robert Ford said more sanctions would follow if the Syrian authorities did not halt the violence.
    "We are watching the growing crescendo of condemnation that I referenced and I don't think you should assume anything other than we're trying and succeeding at putting together an international effort so that there will not be any temptation on the part of anyone inside the Assad regime to claim that it's only the United States or only the west, indeed it's the entire world and we're making the case to our international partners to intensify the financial and political pressure to get the Syrian government to cease its brutality against its own citizens and to make way for positive change," Clinton said, adding that she believed the work was all paying off.
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