The European Union on Monday eased sanctions on Syria’s energy, transport and banking sectors in a bid to help the country’s reconstruction after the fall of Bashar al-Assad.
The step approved at a meeting of EU foreign ministers in Brussels includes suspending sanctions on the energy and transport sectors, allowing transfers to five banks and making funds available to Syria’s central bank.
“The EU aims to facilitate engagement with Syria, its people, and businesses, in key areas of energy and transport, as well as to facilitate financial and banking transactions associated with such sectors and those needed for humanitarian and reconstruction,” the bloc said.
Syria’s new leaders have been clamouring for the West to ease sanctions imposed to target Assad’s regime during the civil war.
