Governments around the world expelled ambassadors and top Syrian diplomats Tuesday in an unusually coordinated blow to Syria’s leaders, after a particularly gruesome massacre in which the United Nations says families, including children, were shot at close range in their homes.
Cranking up the pressure on increasingly isolated Syrian President Bashar Assad, France, Germany, Italy and Spain said they were kicking out Syria’s ambassadors in their countries. Canada said it is expelling all Syrian diplomats, and Britain and Australia expelled senior Syrian diplomats.
The move came after killings Friday in Houla, a collection of farming villages in Syria’s Homs province, one of the deadliest single events in the 15-month-old uprising against Assad’s rule. The U.N. said 49 children and 34 women were among the 108 people killed.
Foreign Secretary William Hague said the expulsion of the top Syrian diplomat in London, charge d’affaires Ghassan Dalla, and two other envoys would send a “stark message” that time was running out for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
The move was part of the increased pressure by the international community on senior figures in the regime to “get the message across to them that they have to choose, that time will run out for Assad,” Hague said.
“As part of that pressure today we have again called the Syrian charge d’affaires in London here to the Foreign Office. He has been given seven days to leave the country,” Hague said.
Categories: Europe