EUROPEAN FOREIGN ministers are set to tighten their arms embargo against Syrian president Bashar al-Assad as the opposition campaign to oust him intensifies.
The ministers want to compel EU member states to board and inspect any vessel or aircraft bound for Syria if they suspect the cargo contains arms or equipment for internal repression.
At a meeting next Monday in Brussels, they will also compel all European governments to seize any items banned from Syria.
The development follows the flouting of the arms embargo by a Russian vessel which passed through a Cypriot port in January.
The Cypriot authorities said they had received assurances from the ship-owners that its destination was Iskenderun in Turkey and not Syria.
Once the ministers sign off on the new measures next week, all aircraft and vessels bound for Syria will have to provide additional pre-arrival and pre-departure information on their cargo when passing through European airspace or waters.
The ministers’ regular meeting comes against the backdrop of escalating violence in the suburbs of Damascus after a bomb attack this week killed four top members of Mr Assad’s inner circle.
A senior diplomatic figure said sources based in central Damascus say the disruption is largely confined to the outskirts of the city.
“What they tell us in the centre of the city life is going on, shops are open, but that maybe the difference with what has happened in recent days is that now people are more cautious,” the diplomat said.
“You see less people in the streets, but there is no major change apart from that at the moment.”
The ministers will freeze the assets of another 26 regime members on Monday, bringing to 155 the number of people targeted by 17 rounds of European sanctions against Mr Assad and his supporters.
With more than 500,000 Syrians displaced within the country as the regime weakens and more than 100,000 taking refuge in neighbouring countries, the ministers will also discuss the spill-over effect of the crisis in the Middle East.
In a new paper for the European Policy Centre think tank, analysts Josef Janning and Andrea Frontini said the fallout of civil war, massacres and deepening ethnic or religious cleavages was likely to place a heavy burden on the transformation of Syrian society. “Unlike Libya, the Syrian power struggle could upset the highly fragile equilibrium in the region, in particular regarding the Sunni/Shia divide, with or without an international military intervention.”
