Thibault Camus/Associated Press
Protesters denounced violence in Syria at a rally in Paris on Tuesday.
By STEVEN ERLANGER
Published: April 17, 2012
PARIS — International sanctions aimed at the Syrian government have cut its financial reserves in half, and pressure must be maintained on Damascus to stop its bloody crackdown on opponents despite a shaky five-day cease-fire, the French foreign minister, Alain Juppé, said on Tuesday.
The financial pressure, including an oil embargo and sanctions on the Central Bank, is damaging Syria’s ability “to finance and arm militias, the lethal shabiha death squads,” Mr. Juppé said, and is hurting those around what he called “the ruling clan” of President Bashar al-Assad.
As Mr. Juppé spoke to a gathering here of the Friends of Syria, representing 57 countries that have imposed sanctions on Damascus, Syrian opposition activists said Syrian forces had engaged in widespread violations of the cease-fire negotiated by Kofi Annan, the special envoy from the United Nations and the Arab League. The Syrian government said its enemies were responsible for subverting the cease-fire.
An advance team of six United Nations observers worked on how to monitor the cease-fire as they waited for 24 more observers to arrive in the next few days. The observers “will start with setting up operating headquarters and reaching out to the Syrian government and the opposition forces so that both sides fully understand” their role, said Ahmad Fawzi, Mr. Annan’s spokesman.
The Paris conference is intended to coordinate and strengthen existing sanctions on the Syrian government, according to French diplomats, as a follow-up to grander meetings of the Friends of Syria at a higher level, in Tunis and Istanbul. It is hosted by France, the European Union’s foreign service and Morocco, which represents Arab countries on the United Nations Security Council. Two Arab League nations, Syria’s neighbors Iraq and Lebanon, did not attend.
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is expected in Paris on Thursday afternoon after NATO meetings in Brussels for a higher-level discussion of Syria, French diplomats said. France is hoping to have a group of foreign ministers, including from Arab League countries like Qatar, which has been pressing for more military help to the Syrian opposition, to a meeting over dinner to reinforce the general disapproval of Damascus and its repression of opposition groups.
Mr. Juppé, in his speech, listed the consequences: nearly 10,000 dead, more than 44,000 refugees, 1.5 million Syrians in need of humanitarian aid. He called it “the sad toll of the Syrian regime’s criminal crackdown.” The United Nations has estimated the toll at 9,000 people.
In Moscow, however, the foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, accused unspecified countries and “external forces” of trying to undermine the Security Council and Mr. Annan’s diplomacy by encouraging the opposition to keep fighting the government, not respecting the cease-fire, supplying weapons to the opposition and setting up separate groups like the Friends of Syria to oppose the regime.
“I can’t avoid pointing to the problems of foreign influence on the process in Syria,” Mr. Lavrov said, according to Russian news agencies. These “external forces” are “doing everything to replace the Security Council with a host of informal formats, such as the ‘Friends of Syria’ and other groups, and doing everything to convince the Syrian opposition not to cooperate with the government, including reconciliation and subsequent dialogue.”
Mr. Lavrov has regularly defended the Syrian government’s military efforts to defeat what he has called “armed gangs” and “armed terrorist groups” that have infiltrated peaceful protesters. Russia has justified Syrian use of force as a response to armed insurrection.
He met in Moscow with some Syrian opposition figures who said they nonetheless sensed a shift in the Russian position toward more criticism of Mr. Assad. Haytham Manna, a Syrian exile leader, pointed out Russia’s support for democratic change in Syria. “The Russian representatives discussing the problems of our country with us are no longer inclined to support the continuing existence of a dictatorial regime but speak of the necessity for democratic change,” Mr. Manna said. Russia, he said, “has all the necessary levers to apply pressure on Assad’s government and help Annan’s mission.”
Hassan Abdul-Azim, who led the delegation, attributed the difficulties in finding a resolution to “the absence of Syrian national consent, the absence of Arab agreement and the absence of a common international position,” which has served to prolong, he said, “the suffering of the Syrian people.”
In Paris, the Friends of Syria group issued conclusions saying members had better organized themselves to coordinate sanctions, called on Syrian entrepreneurs to distance themselves from the government — with the promise that those who did so would not be the targets of sanctions — and urged other countries to join in the sanctions. The group particularly condemned countries that supported the Syrian government with funds or sold arms to it and said that Syrian actions “can be considered crimes against humanity.”
The working group will meet again next month in Washington.
Reporting was contributed by Neil MacFarquhar and Hwaida Saad from Beirut, Lebanon; Glenn Kates from Moscow; and J. David Goodman and Rick Gladstone from New York.
A version of this article appeared in print on April 18, 2012, on page A4 of the New York edition with the headline: Push in Paris for More Pressure on Syria As Money Ebbs and Cease-Fire Wobbles
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