LONDON – Australia called Thursday for international
sanctions on Syria over its violent crackdown on protesters and said
the United Nations should send a special envoy to investigate events
there.
"We believe the time has come for the international community now to
consider the use of sanctions against the Syrian regime," Foreign
Minister Kevin Rudd said after a meeting at the Commonwealth
headquarters in London.
He said the message for Syrian authorities was: "This is just not on.
You can't go around and thug people to death and expect the
international community just to turn a blind eye. We don't."
Rudd said the Australian government had called in Syria's charge
d'affaires earlier Thursday "to register Australia's fundamental
opposition to the violence being deployed by the Syrian regime against
its own people."
Rudd said he would write to United Nations Secretary General Ban
Ki-moon to ask him to send a U.N. special envoy to Syria to produce a
comprehensive report about what was happening there.
"We need a clear basis of fact across the country as to the extent of
the violations of fundamental human rights occurring in that country,"
he said.
The Syrian rights group Sawasiah said Thursday the death toll in six weeks of protests had risen to at least 500.
A European push for the U.N. Security Council to condemn Syria's
crackdown was blocked Wednesday by resistance from Russia, China and
Lebanon, making agreement on U.N. sanctions unlikely.
Rudd said Australia could consider imposing sanctions unilaterally if no agreement was possible at the United Nations.
He said Australia would liaise closely with the European Union, which
is already discussing measures against Syria, on what sanctions might
consist of. Washington is also considering its own sanctions against
Syria.
Rudd also said that a group of Commonwealth ministers meeting Thursday
had decided to maintain Fiji's suspension of from the organization,
imposed in 2009 over its failure to meet a deadline for opening talks
on a return to democracy. Reuters
