OTTAWA – Canada is closing its embassy in Syria and has pulled diplomats out of the country because of escalating violence in the “deteriorating” nation, Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird said Monday.
Along with the move comes further sanctions against Syria, which Baird announced at a meeting with Sheikh Abdullah bin Al Nahyan, the foreign affairs minister for the United Arab Emirates. This is the sixth round of sanctions imposed upon Syrian President Assad.
“Canada has maintained its diplomatic presence in Syria – despite the risks – to monitor developments on the ground and to deliver tough and frank messages to the Syrian authorities. These messages will continue to be delivered directly through the Syrian embassy here in Ottawa and through our other international forums,” Baird said in a statement released Monday.
“We continue to reiterate: Assad must go. Change will happen. Syrians will have their day-and Canada stands with the Syrian people in their push for a better, brighter future.”
The measures against Syria include a complete ban on the provision or acquisition of financial or other related services, as well as sanctions on the Syrian central bank and seven high-ranking Syrian officials implicated in the violence.
Get daily National news
From Dec. 15, 2011, to Jan. 14, 2012, Canada implemented a voluntary evacuation of citizens in Syria and offered fast-track services to help them leave the country quickly. Baird told reporters that Ottawa offered to help Canadians in Syria at least six or seven times.
Now, according to DFAIT, Canadians who have remained in Syria despite repeated calls to leave should rely on the Canadian embassy in Beirut for consular assistance.
“Canadians remaining in Syria place themselves at considerable personal risk. All Canadians in Syria are again urged to leave now, while commercial options are available,” the DFAIT statement read.
Canada has also arranged with the Hungarian embassy in Damascus in case citizens on the ground need help.
While the United States, the United Kingdom, Italy, France and other countries closed embassy doors last month, Canada relented.
Homs, the provincial capital and Syria’s third-largest city with one million residents, has emerged as a central battleground in the year-old uprising to oust authoritarian President Bashar Assad.
Activists say hundreds have been killed in the monthlong Homs offensive and the UN recently put the death toll for a year of violence in Syria at 7,500. However, activists group say the toll has already surpassed 8,000.
The crackdown in Homs also killed an American reporter and a French photographer who sneaked into the country and filed their final reports shedding light on the horrors of life under assault and the quickly swelling humanitarian catastrophe in the city.
The measures against Syria include a complete ban on the provision or acquisition of financial or other related services, as well as sanctions on the Syrian central bank and seven high-ranking Syrian officials implicated in the violence.
Comments
Want to discuss? Please read our Commenting Policy first.