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Rabat – European Union countries announced on Monday their decision to alleviate sanctions imposed on Syria with immediate effect.
This move comes to ease restrictions in several sectors including energy, banking, transport, and reconstruction.
EU measures also included lifting asset freezes for five banks, easing restrictions on the Syrian central bank, and indefinitely extending an exemption to facilitate the delivery of humanitarian aid.
The European bloc said that through this alleviation “the EU aims to facilitate engagement with Syria, its people, and businesses, in key areas of energy and transport,” adding that it is also meant “to facilitate financial and banking transactions associated with such sectors and those needed for humanitarian and reconstruction purposes.”
Syria welcomed the move expressing enthusiasm that it will help the country in charting its path towards revival of vital sectors and easing the burden of Syrian people.
The country’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Asaad Al-Chibani wrote on X “we welcome the EU’s decision to suspend selected sanctions on specific sectors and see this as a step toward alleviating the suffering of our people.”
EU countries’ decision comes after two months of political discussions where Syria’s interim government’s officials pleaded for the sanction lift to ease the transition process in the war-torn country.
Read also: The Future of Syria after Assad’s Departure
“We have spent the past two months engaging in discussions and diplomatic efforts to ease the unjust sanctions that have burdened our people,” Shibani added.
On January 27, the EU countries agreed on a roadmap to ease sanctions following mediation from Saudi Arabia to help Syria in its revival journalistic.
The move comes two months after the new Syrian interim government had been pleading for alleviating sanctions on the war-torn country to help it reconstruct.
Many Western countries initially imposed sanctions on Syria during the now-ousted Assad’s crackdown on pro-democracy protests in 2011. The protests later turned into a civil war that killed over 2 million people, displaced millions of others, and destroyed much of the country.
