International pressure on Syria continues to mount

Davutoglu announced new Turkish sanctions on Syria in Ankara Pressure is mounting on President Bashar Al-Assad, with growing foreign condemnation of his repression of the Syrian uprising and attacks by armed rebels that his forces appear unable to stamp out.
Arab countries are not holding back in their criticism of Damascus's crackdown that has led to a UN estimate of 3,500 deaths. Many activisists state the approximation is conservative.
Saudi Arabia urged its citizens on Tuesday to quickly leave Syria to avoid getting caught in a military crackdown on months of popular protests, the Saudi state news agency reported. Saudi Arabia has taken a leading role among Arab states in condemning Assad’s use of troops and tanks to crush street unrest. In August King Abdullah urged Syria to end bloodshed and recalled his country’s ambassador from Damascus.
The United Arab Emirates' airlines has decided to suspend flights to Syria next week under sanctions imposed by the Arab League, the government of Dubai's press office said in its Twitter feed on Wednesday. The country's main airlines are Emirates and Etihad Airways.
Even Lebanon said it would enforce the Arab League sanctions on Syria  despite not supporting them earlier, Economy Minister Nicola Nahhas told AFP Wednesday.
"We are committed to implementing the Arab League sanctions," Nahhas said, pointing out that the Syrian government in any case had no trade dealings with Lebanon.
Nahhas said the Arab League sanctions were clear in that while no transactions could take place with the Syrian government, that did not apply to the private sector.
He said Lebanese banks however would have no dealings with the Syrian central bank or any individuals targeted by the sanctions.
Lebanon, whose government is dominated by the pro-Syrian Hezbollah movement, disassociated itself from the vote at the Arab League.
Syria has long held sway in Lebanese politics and the revolt threatening the regime in Damascus has deepened a rift between the ruling pro-Syrian bloc headed by Hezbollah and an anti-Syrian opposition headed by Sunni ex-premier Saad Hariri.
Turkey, which has emerged as a leading voice in resolving tensions gripping the Middle East, said on Wednesday it had suspended all financial credit dealings with Syria and frozen Syrian government assets, joining the Arab League and Western powers in imposing economic sanctions against President Bashar Assad’s government.
Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu told a news conference that Turkey, Syria’s largest trading partner, will also block delivery of all weapons and military equipment to Damascus as part of measures aimed at persuading Assad to end a crackdown on protesters.
A Foreign Ministry official said the sanctions come into effect immediately.
The move by Turkey, once a close friend of Syria, piles further pressure on Assad and comes after the Arab League announced economic sanctions against Damascus.
Davutoglu also said all relations with Syria’s central bank were being suspended and that a cooperation agreement with Syria was being halted until there was a new government in place.
“Until a legitimate government which is at peace with its people is in charge in Syria, the mechanism of the High Level of Strategic Cooperation has been suspended,” Davutoglu said, adding Assad’s government had come “to the end of the road.”
Turkey now hosts Syrian military defectors and an umbrella Syrian opposition group.
Turkey, which last year had a bilateral trade of $2.5 billion with Syria, has said it is weighing new trade routes to bypass Syria should violence there continue.
Ankara has said any sanctions would not hurt the Syrian people and has ruled out cutting off electricity and water supplies. It has also said civil aviation by Turkish Airlines to Damascus will continue.
European and Arab diplomats told Reuters the top United Nations human rights forum would announce on Wednesday a special Friday session that was expected to condemn Syria for crimes against humanity.
The move is partly designed to put pressure on China and Russia to take a stronger stand against Assad’s government.
The 47-member UN Human Rights Council’s third session on Syria in eight months is being convened days after a UN commission of inquiry said Syrian government forces had committed murder, torture and rape in their crackdown on pro-democracy protests.
“This is very much being led by the Arab group. Some Arab ambassadors are at least as concerned as the European Union and United States and possibly more,” Britain’s ambassador Peter Gooderham told Reuters.
“There is no question that the resolution will be very hard-hitting at the Council's session on Friday,” he said. “It is all intended to build up the maximum pressure that the Human Rights Council can apply.”
An Arab diplomat in Geneva, who declined to be identified, told Reuters: “Arab support is there, the three Gulf Cooperation Council countries who are Council members - Qatar, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia - and Jordan. I’m sure Libya will be with us too.”
“It is meant to be a tool for later action in New York,” he said, referring to the General Assembly and Security Council.
On Sunday, the Arab League imposed sanctions on Damascus over its crackdown, in which more than 3,500 people have been killed since March, including 256 children, according to the United Nations. The EU weighed in one day later, further tightening the financial screws on Damascus.
An EU draft resolution to be presented to the UN rights forum for adoption strongly condemns “continued widespread, systematic and gross violations of human rights and fundamental freedoms by the Syrian authorities.”
These included executions, killing and persecution of protesters, activists and journalists, as well as arbitrary detentions, enforced disappearances and torture.
“The resolution will certainly be adopted, no question, it has wide support,” the Arab diplomat said.
The draft text recommends that the General Assembly consider the commission of inquiry’s report and refer the report to the Security Council “for its consideration and appropriate action.”
The Security Council has the power to refer a country to the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC).
“This is probably the most controversial element in the resolution,” Gooderham said.
Russia and China, which both have oil concessions in Syria, teamed up last month to veto a Western-backed Security Council resolution condemning Assad’s government for violence.
The British envoy, asked about chances of winning support from China and Russia for the resolution, said: “Naturally we hope they will support this and not call a vote on the resolution as they did in August where they found themselves in a very small minority of only four states,” he said.
“We hope that they will look at the merits. The seriousness of the evidence is incontrovertible,” he said.
The UN commission of inquiry, which interviewed 223 victims and witnesses including defectors from the Syrian army, catalogued executions, torture, brutal rapes and abductions.
“They didn’t even have access to Syria. Imagine what is happening really inside the country,” the Arab diplomat said.
“It is close to the Iraq of Saddam Hussein, it is not any different in terms of human rights,” he said.
France has raised the idea of a secured humanitarian corridor, a step which would appear to imply some use of armed forces for security and logistics, if camps were set up on Syria’s border to accommodate masses of refugees.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said other states should “stop issuing ultimatums” to Assad and drop talk of an arms embargo which he said would favor the rebels.
“We know how that worked in Libya when the arms embargo only applied to the Libyan army, the opposition received weapons, and countries like France and Qatar publicly spoke about it without shame,” Lavrov said.
“For the most part, armed groups are provoking the authorities. To expect the authorities to close their eyes to this is not right,” said Moscow's veteran top diplomat.
Syria is a major weapons client of Moscow as well as a long-time strategic ally dating back to Soviet times. It also has close ties with Iran.
Meanwhile, Syrian rebel forces ambushed an army vehicle in northern Syria on Tuesday, killing three soldiers and capturing two others, human rights observers said.
“The security forces vehicle was targeted while driving in the city of Saraqeb in Idlib province by a group of suspected army defectors,” the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said in a statement.
Activists said nine civilians, among them a child, died in fresh violence across Syria.
An eight-year-old girl was among five civilians killed in the flashpoint central city of Homs. She was struck by a stray bullet from a security checkpoint, the Observatory said, according to AFP.
And three people were shot dead in Rankuss near Damascus, where at least 17 civilians have been killed since Sunday, it said.
Troops also arrested 29 high school students in a raid in the southern province of Deraa, cradle of the anti-regime dissent.
Syria blames “armed terrorists” for the violence, and on Monday Foreign Minister Walid Muallem slammed Arab countries for ignoring these claims.
“The Arabs don’t want to admit the presence in Syria of groups of armed terrorists who are committing these crimes, abductions and attacks on public places,” he said.
Muallem denounced the punitive measures as “economic war,” but said Syria was capable of weathering the effects of the sanctions.