The United States, Britain and other European allies said on Thursday they would draft a UN Security Council sanctions resolution on Syria, Reuters reported.
“The Syrian government has not changed course,” Britain’s deputy UN ambassador, Philip Parham, was quoted by Reuters as saying after a closed-door council meeting on Syria. "In fact, if anything, its actions over the last two weeks have escalated.”
Parham added, “The time has come for the council to take further actions to step up the pressure against those who are responsible for the violence against the citizens of Syria. We will be working on a Security Council resolution that will include measures to apply that pressure.”
His remarks were echoed by the U.S., German, French and Portuguese envoys, who made it clear they would help draft what all envoys said would be a UN sanctions resolution.
“More than ever, the council should increase pressure on Assad’s regime,” U.S. deputy envoy Rosemary DiCarlo was quoted as saying.
It was not immediately clear what measures they would seek and what Syria’s allies Russia and China think about the idea of sanctioning Syria.
The latest announcement comes after on Thursday, U.S. President Barack Obama called on Syrian President Bashar Assad to resign. This was the first time Obama made such a call since Assad began his brutal crackdown on protesters five months ago.
In a written statement Obama said Assad has overseen a “vicious onslaught” against his people as they protest for freedoms. He said the Syrian people will decide their country’s future but Assad is standing in their way and must go.
Obama said Assad’s calls for reform rang hollow while he was “imprisoning, torturing and slaughtering his own people.”
In response, Syria’s U.N. ambassador, Bashar Ja’afari, accused Washington of waging a “diplomatic and humanitarian war” against Syria along with some other Security Council members.
“These countries are trying to settle their old accounts with my country,” Reuters quoted Ja’afari as saying. “These forces have nothing but hatred against my country and my nation.”
On Wednesday, Assad told UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon that his bloody crackdown on anti-regime protesters in his country was at an end.
Assad’s claim came days after key allies Turkey and Saudi Arabia demanded in no uncertain terms he bring the crackdown to a halt.
Ja’afari was also asked if Assad’s claims were true and said it was “already a fact on the ground, the military and police operations stopped in Syria.”
At the Security Council meeting on Thursday, the members heard briefings on Syria from UN human rights chief Navi Pillay, the world body’s humanitarian coordinator Valerie Amos and UN political affairs chief Lynn Pascoe.
Pillay later told reporters that the Syrian government might have committed crimes against humanity, adding she had recommended that the council should consider referring Syria to the International Criminal Court in The Hague.
Amos told reporters a UN team was heading to Syria over the weekend to assess the humanitarian situation there and that the government had promised the team unfettered access.