Follow the latest news on the earthquake in Turkey and Syria
The EU on Monday launched internal discussions over potentially alleviating its sanctions regime against Damascus, in a move described by officials and analysts as an attempt to counter accusations that the measures are depriving civilians of much needed support after a devastating earthquake killed more than 35,000 in Turkey and Syria.
There has been renewed media attention on the bloc’s sanctions against Syria after Damascus said that the punitive measures issued by the US and the EU — in large part over the Syrian civil war which began in 2011 — were blocking aid to its population.
On Friday, the US announced it would ease sanctions for six months.
Three EU diplomats told The National that ambassadors had discussed the sanctions against Syria on Monday but declined to give more details.
Syria-related sanctions have been enacted against hundreds of individuals. The sanctions also ban the import of oil and certain investments that could be used for internal repression.
The scope of EU sanctions remains limited in comparison to US sanctions, which can be applied around the world. Since the earthquake, EU officials have repeatedly said that sanctions do not hamper the delivery of humanitarian aid to Syria.
Peter Stano, the EU Commission's leading foreign affairs spokesman, said on Monday that the bloc could not be blamed for difficulties in channelling aid to Syria.
“Let’s not interchange the cause and the consequence,” said Mr Stano during a press briefing. “The fact that there are issues for international help to reach people in Syria who need it is the result of the conflict situation.”
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The brother of a survivor Gokhan Ugurlu, 35, who was pulled out of the rubble in Hatay, Turkey, reacts as a rescuer looks on. Reuters -
A woman walks past flattened buildings in a street in Hatay province, Turkey. Reuters -
A member of the army stands amid rubble in Kahramanmaras, Turkey. Reuters -
A man reacts while sitting outside a tent of a temporary accommodation centre set up on a football pitch in Gaziantep, Turkey. Reuters -
Earthquake survivors walk on a street in Hatay, Turkey. Reuters -
A White Helmets volunteer holds a rescued cat in the rebel-held town of Jandaris, Syria. Reuters -
A Syrian boy, who lost his family in the deadly earthquake, stands amid the rubble of his family home in Jindayris. AFP -
Rescuers sit by a bonfire in Hatay, Turkey. AFP -
A Turkish soldier walks among destroyed buildings in Hatay. AFP -
Relatives of Palestinian doctor Yusuf Darabeh, who died when the earthquake hit Turkey, comfort each other. AP Photo -
People stand by a collapsed building in Kahramanmaras, southern Turkey. AP Photo -
A child, injured in the earthquake, is treated at hospital in Bab Al Hawah, Syria. AP Photo -
Vehicles containing aid from Hashid Shaabi (Popular Mobilization Forces) on the Iraqi side of the Iraq-Syria border. Reuters -
Rescuers carry Muhammed Alkanaas, 12, to an ambulance after five days under the rubble in Antakya, Turkey. AP -
Romanian firefighters load a Turkey-bound train with emergency aid near Bucharest. AP -
Collapsed buildings in Jandaris, Syria. Reuters -
Abdulkerim Nano, 67, is rescued after five days under the rubble in in Kahramanmaras, Turkey -
A Turkish rescue worker checks a collapsed building in Adiyaman. AP -
Rescuers in Adiyaman, Turkey. AP -
A resident in front of his collapsed building in the Elbistan district of Kahramanmaras. AFP -
Syrian refugees shelter in a public market in the Islahiye district of Gaziantep, Turkey. AP -
A family wait for the bodies of their relatives to be recovered in Antakya, Turkey. AP -
A woman plays with a sniffer dog in Antakya, Turkey. AP -
Collapsed buildings in Antakya, Turkey. AP -
A Syrian woman takes care of her nephew Hasan Goayid, eight, in Islahiye district, Gaziantep. AP -
A Syrian child in a tent in the Islahiye district. AP -
Collapsed buildings in the Elbistan district of Kahramanmaras. AFP -
Emirati rescuers sift through the rubble of a collapsed building in the regime-controlled town of Jableh, northwest of the Syrian capital. AFP -
Volunteers at the Emirates Red Crescent 'Bridges of Goodness' campaign at the South Hall, Dubai Exhibition Centre at Expo City. Leslie Pableo for The National -
Martin Griffiths, UN Under Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Co-ordinator, in Maras, Turkey. Reuters -
Rescuers give water to a dog after a rescue operation in Hatay, southern Turkey. AP -
A deadly earthquake struck southern Turkey and northern Syria on February 6. EPA -
Fissures from the earthquake have crumpled the highway near Islahiyeh in Southern Turkey. Matt Kynaston / The National -
A Kurdish charity's aid convoy enters Syria through the Bab Al Salama crossing with Turkey, in the northern province of Aleppo. AFP -
A rescuer with a sniffer dog searches in a destroyed building in Antakya, southern Turkey. AFP -
A makeshift camp erected in a stadium in the city of Kahramanmaras, southern Turkey. EPA -
A woman mourns Turkish Cypriot victims of the earthquake, during a funeral procession in the Turkish occupied area in north-east coastal city of Famagusta, Cyprus. AP -
Rescuers carry survivor Rabia Ofkeli, 27, from the rubble in Hatay, southern Turkey. Reuters -
Syrian President Bashar Al Assad visits Aleppo university hospital. Reuters -
Members of the Swiss rescue team with a four-month-old girl, Abir, who was pulled out from the rubble in Antakya. AFP -
Survivors at a hospital in Kahramanmaras, Turkey. Reuters -
Members of the White Helmets during the fifth day of rescue operations in Jandaris, Syria. Reuters -
Indonesian Muslims perform a prayer for the victims at Istiqlal grand mosque in Jakarta. EPA -
Emergency personnel conduct a rescue operation to save Melda, 16, from beneath the rubble of a collapsed building in Hatay, southern Turkey. AFP -
The earthquake caused a railbed overpass to collapse in Nurdagi, Turkey. AFP -
A framed picture on the cracked wall of a collapsed building in Kahramanmaras, south-eastern Turkey. EPA -
A coastal area of Iskenderun, Turkey, was flooded after the quake. Reuters -
A sheet of paper lies among the rubble in Elbistan. AP -
Relief supplies destined for earthquake survivors in Turkey, at a warehouse in Schoenefeld, near Berlin, Germany. AP -
Rescuers search for survivors in the rubble of collapsed buildings in Kahramanmaras, three days after the earthquake struck. AFP -
Rescuers with a child pulled out from under the rubble. Reuters -
Rescuers rest on top of rubble as an aircraft drops water over a fire at the port in the quake-stricken town of Iskenderun. Reuters -
A rescue worker in Kahramanmaras, three days after a 7.8-magnitude earthquake struck south-east Turkey. AFP -
People try to pull out a dog trapped beneath the rubble in Iskenderun, Turkey. Reuters -
Lorries carrying humanitarian aid wait at Bab Al Hawa crossing on the Turkey-Syria border. Reuters -
Syrians warm up by a fire outside a makeshift tent near the rebel-held town of Jindayris in Syria. AFP -
A dam on the Orontes river in Syria's rebel-held Idlib province collapsed after the quake, flooding the neighbourhood. AFP -
The sails of the Sydney Opera House lit with a black ribbon in remembrance and mourning of the earthquake victims. Getty -
Smoke billows amid an expanse of collapsed and damaged buildings in Kahramanmaras, Turkey. Reuters -
Dogs of the German International Search and Rescue team rest between operations in Kirikhan, Turkey. Reuters -
White Helmets volunteers rescue a child trapped beneath the rubble in Jandaris, Syria. Reuters -
People gather to collect food and humanitarian aid in the Elbistan district of Kahramanmaras, south-east Turkey. EPA -
The statue of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, founder of modern Turkey, is surrounded by damaged buildings in Adiyaman province. AP -
A plane carrying humanitarian air sent for earthquake survivors lands in Damascus. Mahmoud Rida / The National -
Motorway fractured by earthquake causes car crash near Kahramanmaras, Turkey. Matt Kynaston / The National -
A tent camp has been set up at a stadium in south-eastern Turkish city of Kahramanmaras to shelter families whose homes were destroyed in the quake. AFP -
A displaced Syrian woman rests under a tree in a field on the outskirts of the rebel-held town of Jindayris. AFP
The EU’s re-examination of its sanctions regime seems primarily to be a political message aimed at toning down criticism, said Jihad Yazigi, editor-in-chief of The Syria Report, an online economic bulletin on the Syrian economy.
“Unlike US sanctions, the EU doesn’t target the Syrian banking sector as a whole,” he said. “Their scope is extremely limited to certain sectors, including oil and luxury products, telecoms and weapons.”
Yazigi pointed to figures published by the UN Comtrade database, which show that in 2021, Syria continued to import close to $330,000 worth of goods, roughly 13 per cent of total imports, from European countries.
He said such figures undermine accusations from the Syrian government that western sanctions are killing its economy and health sector in particular.
“This whole sanctions argument is a huge exaggeration,” added Yazigi.
Meanwhile, US sanctions on the banking sector have encouraged overcompliance in the European banking sector, which generally prefers to avoid dealing with Syria altogether rather than risking legal action.
“It’s quite a complex situation — the US bans any dealing with the Syrian banking sector, the EU does not ban it but banks across the world are afraid of working with their Syrian counterparts, and rules among money transfer companies vary,” said Yazigi.
An EU official told The National that member countries may possibly re-examine a ban on material that is considered to be of “dual use”, meaning that it could be used both for clearing debris and reconstruction following the earthquake but could also be weaponised by the Syrian army against its civilian population.
The EU’s list of such equipment includes vehicles designed to remove barricades, including construction equipment with ballistic protection.
“Dual-use products are always tricky,” said Aron Lund, fellow at Century International. “The moment the Syrian army can import construction materials through a construction company, they obviously will.
“All armies own a lot of construction equipment because they need to move things out of the way all the time.”
Construction materials have so far not been requested either by Syria or the World Food Programme, which both activated the EU's civil protection mechanism following the earthquake. Their requests included items such as tents, sleeping bags and heaters.
Ten countries that are part of this mechanism have made offers. So far, only a handful of these offers, including one made by Austria, have been accepted by the WFP for north-west Syria. It remains unclear whether offers of help have been made directly to the Syrian government.
But help is “on the way” from EU stockpiles in Dubai and Italy, said Balazs Ujvari, EU Commission spokesman for humanitarian aid and crisis management. He did not clarify whether the aid had already crossed the border into Syria.
EU aid will be distributed by the International Federation of the Red Cross in government-controlled northern Syria and by the International Organisation for Migration in north-west Syria.
Access to north-west Syria has been particularly difficult because it is controlled by rebel groups classified as terrorists by the UN, including the group Hayat Tahrir Al Sham.
Due to a Russian veto, the UN Security Council has authorised only one border crossing for humanitarian assistance between Turkey and north-western Syria.
Of the 3,500 deaths so far reported in Syria, the bulk occurred in the north-west, in territory largely held by Hayat Tahrir Al Sham.
On Sunday, a source who was not authorised to talk to the media told Reuters the group would not allow shipments from government-held parts of Syria and that aid would be coming in from Turkey.
UN aid chief Martin Griffiths said the people of north-eastern Syria have been failed and “rightly feel abandoned”.
“The real issue is access,” said the EU official. “HTS doesn’t want people to go into some areas and the regime [in Damascus] allows international aid to go where it chooses, not where it is needed.”
