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Washington:
The United States on Monday imposed new sanctions focusing on Syria’s oil sector, lawmakers and intelligence officers, vowing no let-up in stress on President Bashar al-Assad regardless of his good points on the bottom.
“The Assad regime has a choice: take irreversible steps toward a peaceful resolution of this nearly decade-long conflict or face further crippling sanctions,” Secretary of State Mike Pompeo mentioned in an announcement.
The Treasury Department and State Department barred transactions with 19 people or entities and froze any US belongings they could have — its fifth spherical of sanctions since a troublesome new US legislation on Syria got here into power.
Sanctioned entities embrace two companions of Syria’s petroleum ministry — Arfada Petroleum Private Joint Stock Co and Sallizar Shipping, that are at work on an oil refinery in war-ravaged Raqa province and a terminal within the coastal metropolis of Tartus.
The United States additionally slapped sanctions on General Ghassan Jaoudat Ismail, head of Syrian Air Force Intelligence, and Brigadier General Nasr Al-Ali, who heads the Political Security Directorate, a spy company answerable for curbing dissent in opposition to Assad.
The Caesar Act, which took impact in June, restricts any US reconstruction help and retains up stress on Assad, demanding accountability, though he has gained again management of most of Syria following greater than 9 years of bloodshed.
The State Department mentioned it was imposing the newest sanctions in reminiscence of the greater than 70 civilians killed in an October 2015 bombing of a market in Douma, a metropolis close to Damascus then beneath insurgent management that was hit three years later by a chemical assault, in line with a UN probe.
Six days after US elections by which Democrat Joe Biden beat President Donald Trump, Pompeo introduced that the US level man on Syria, James Jeffrey, 74, would retire this month.
A former US ambassador to Baghdad and Ankara, the Turkish-speaking diplomat has been a key go-between with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who final 12 months assaulted US-allied Syrian Kurds following a pullout ordered by Trump.
Nathan Sales, the highest State Department counterterrorism official, will take over each because the US consultant on Syria and envoy to the coalition to defeat the Islamic State group, Pompeo mentioned.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV employees and is printed from a syndicated feed.)
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