(Brussels) – European Union Foreign Ministers have decided to impose fresh sanctions on Syria, without publicly providing precise details. Diplomats said the fresh restrictions applied to three people and two firms.
Foreign ministers from the 27 EU member states issued a statement saying that the bloc would implement its 15th round of sanctions against President Bashar al-Assad’s Syrian government.
“The ceasefire is not being fully implemented,” Britain’s foreign minister, William Hague, told reporters. “There continues to be killing, torture, abuse in Syria. So it’s very important to keep the pressure on the Assad regime.”
Hague’s counterpart from Luxembourg, Jean Asselborn, said “we must maintain political pressure.”
The UN’s last official estimate, from March 27, put Syria’s total death toll from 14 months of violence at more than 9,000. Observer organizations have published more recent estimates stretching as high as 12,000.
Prior to this decision, the EU had already blacklisted 126 individuals and 41 firms or utilities, while also freezing central bank assets, banning EU-bound cargo flights from Syria and restricting trade in gold and other precious metals.