News / Syria

Coercive measures against Syria ‘unforgivable crime’: Arab forum

Monday, 27 April 2020 4:06 PM [ Last Update: Monday, 27 April 2020 4:06 PM ]

Syrian teachers make face masks in an educational institute in the capital Damascus on April 26, 2020, amid the novel coronavirus pandemic. (Photo by AFP)

Participants at an Arab International Forum have called for the lifting of illegal economic sanctions imposed by the West, led by Washington, on Syria, terming the coercive measures as “an unforgivable crime” since they undermine the efficiency of the fight against the new coronavirus.

During an online briefing, the figures pointed out that the United States and its allies were targeting those nations, which reject Washington’s hegemony throughout the region and beyond, Syria’s official news agency SANA reported on Monday.

The forum, which includes unions, civil society groups, internationally-reputed figures and activists, stressed that using food and medicine as a tool for blockade during the pandemic is one of “the ugliest and most brutal types of war.”

“The coronavirus pandemic showed the absence of human values from the new colonial world order, which is led by the United States and controlled by the concept of material profit at the expense of man, health, dignity and life,” the participants’ statement read.

Elsewhere, they denounced an ongoing “economic terrorism” and other forms of aggression that Syria has been exposed to for more than nine years.

In mid-April, Russian Ambassador to Damascus Aleksandr Yefimov called for the complete and immediate lifting of the unilateral sanctions on Syria.

Russian envoy calls for lifting of sanctions against Syria amid coronavirus pandemic

Russia’s ambassador to Syria urges the lifting of sanctions imposed on Syria in light of the spread of coronavirus.

Syrian Ambassador to Russia Riad Haddad also said in an interview with TASS news agency that Damascus had asked the Russian Health Ministry for aid in order to combat the spread of COVID-19.

Syria’s Health Ministry in late March confirmed the country’s first death resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic.