UK Lifts Sanctions on Syria's Economy, but Stability Still a Long way off

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In a demonstration of trust in Syria's interim government, the UK lifted significant economic sanctions, allowing access to assets of the Central Bank of Syria and petroleum companies. It follows a similar move by the European Union, which suspended sanctions across the country's banking and energy sectors last month. It is expected that these measures will contribute to Syria’s economic recovery. 

In January, Reuters reported on the dire state of Syria's economy, identifying sanctions, originally introduced by the West to put pressure on Bashar al-Assad's regime, as part of the problem. GDP, the most common metric for the size of an economy, more than halved between 2010 and 2021. Syria was reclassified by the World Bank as a low-income country in 2018; and nine out of ten Syrians now live below the poverty line, according to the United Nations. 

Interim president Ahmad al-Sharaa, whose Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) led the rebel offensive that overthrew Assad in December, has promised to rebuild the country and respect human rights. Foreign minister Asaad al-Shibani told the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons in a meeting at The Hague on the 5th of March, that the new government would destroy any remaining chemical weapons stocked by Assad’s regime. 

But ongoing clashes and revenge killings in the coastal provinces of Latakia and Tartous show the size of the challenge that al-Sharaa faces. In the northeast of the country, the Kurds’ long fight against the Turkish military is also far from over. In November, the BBC reported that Turkish strikes cut water to one million people amidst a drought, in what experts said was a possible violation of international law.  

In some Semitic languages like Hebrew and Arabic, people greet each other by wishing for ‘peace to be upon them’. But in Syria, despite some good news on the economy, peace and stability are not in sight just yet.