U.S. closes embassy in Syria due to unrest

[News_Editor]

U.S. closes embassy in Syria due to unrest

2012-02-07 20:42:34 GMT+7 (ICT)

WASHINGTON, D.C. (BNO NEWS) -- The U.S. government on Monday closed its embassy in the Syrian capital of Damascus due to concerns that its staff is not sufficiently protected from armed attacks, U.S. officials said.

U.S. State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland announced the suspension of operations at the embassy after Ambassador Robert Ford and the handful of people still working with him had departed the country. The move effectively cuts many of the remaining diplomatic relations between the two countries.

"The recent surge in violence, including bombings in Damascus on December 23 and January 6, has raised serious concerns that our Embassy is not sufficiently protected from armed attacks," Nuland said. "We, along with several other diplomatic missions, conveyed our security concerns to the Syrian government but the regime failed to respond adequately."

The U.S. Embassy compound in Damascus is located at the confluence of several main streets, worrying U.S. officials that it would be an easy target. "For almost 20 years, the U.S. Government has been petitioning the Government of Syria to be able to move the Embassy, to have a plot of land elsewhere that was better protected as we have for many of our missions, and we were never able to come to an agreement on that," Nuland explained. "So this is obviously regrettable and not what we wanted, but where we are."

Before departing Syria on Monday, Ford met with Deputy Foreign Minister Arnous to inform the Syrian government of the U.S. decision to suspend operations at the U.S. Embassy. The Syrian Embassy in Washington, D.C. will remain open, and U.S. officials said they were not aware of plans to close it.

"We have asked our ally Poland, and Poland has agreed, to be our protecting power in Damascus," Nuland added. "So any remaining American citizens in Syria who haven't heeded our repeated travel warnings, which were updated again today, can receive consular services through the Embassy of Poland."

Syria has been part of the wider Arab Spring movement which began in early 2011 and has been riddled by violence ever since. Pro-democracy demonstrations have spread across the country since mid-March, resulting in a fierce government crackdown which has left more than 7,000 people killed.

But unrest has spread to Damascus which was the scene of three deadly suicide bombings in recent weeks. At least 26 people were killed and more than 60 others were injured when a suicide bomber blew himself up near a school in the al-Midan neighborhood of Damascus on January 6. It followed two suicide bombings which targeted Syrian government buildings on December 23, killing 44 people and injuring 166.

In October 2011, the U.S. Embassy in Damascus was designated an unaccompanied post with restricted staffing. And last month, as U.S. officials warned it was considering to close the embassy, the U.S. government decided to further reduce the number of employees present in Damascus and ordered a number of employees to depart Syria as soon as possible.

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