President Barack Obama today issued a call for Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad to step down. “The future of Syria must be determined by its people, but President Bashar al-Assad is standing in their way,” the statement read. “His calls for dialogue and reform have rung hollow while he is imprisoning, torturing, and slaughtering his own people. We have consistently said that President Assad must lead a democratic transition or get out of the way. He has not led. For the sake of the Syrian people, the time has come for President Assad to step aside.”
The White House also announced that the president signed a new executive order that freezes the assets of the Syrian government in the United States, and bans U.S. citizens from doing any business with Syria, including dealing in Syrian-sourced petroleum or petroleum products. The call for Assad to leave power, combined with these new measures targeting his regime, comes as Syria continues its campaign of violent repression, recently shelling the Mediterranean port city of Latakia and causing the flight of thousands of Palestinian refugees living there.
It also comes amid increasing criticism from others in the region. Last week, Saudi Arabia recalled its ambassador to Syria, with Saudi King Abdullah condemning the violence as “unacceptable.” On Monday, Ahmet Davotoglu, the Foreign Minister of Turkey, one of Syria’s closest trading partners, demanded that the Syrian government end its crackdown on a five-month-old uprising “immediately and unconditionally,” and warned of further steps if it did not.
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