LITTLE ROCK — Sanctions against Syria’s oil industry are taking a substantial toll, draining $4 billion from the country’s economy so far and causing widespread fuel shortages, a top official of the government of President Bashar Assad said Wednesday.
The remarks by the country’s oil minister, Sufian Alao, came on a day when Turkey accused Syria of offering a haven for Kurdish rebels, while Russia accused the West of impeding a United Nations peace plan for Syria.
Meanwhile, there were fresh reports of violence by both sides in the long-running conflict.
Alao said at a news conference in Damascus that, despite the arrival of fuel oil shipments from Venezuela, one of Syria’s few remaining friends, supplies of diesel and cooking gas were running short because of the sanctions. He called on people to conserve fuel and to use other energy sources, like electricity, whenever possible.
Videos posted on YouTube showed long lines of people in Syria waiting to buy bottles of cooking gas at prices that have spiraled since the sanctions were imposed. Syria’s domestic energy production can meet only about half the country’s demand for gas, and the rest must be imported, Alao said.
Before the sanctions were imposed, oil exports were a mainstay of the Syrian economy, but most of the exports went to Europe. Now the country has a hard time shipping oil abroad and must tap its currency reserves to pay for what imports it can obtain.
The U.S. ambassador to Damascus denied that the international sanctions are to blame for the shortages facing Syrians.
“Our sanctions purposefully do not target oil and diesel imports, because we know that the Syrian people need both for their day-to-day lives,” Ambassador Robert Ford wrote on the embassy’s Facebook page.
Ford said the government is using fuel imports for its tanks.
Relations with Turkey, formerly a major trading partner and close ally of Syria, have plummeted since the Turkish prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, joined in Western calls for Assad to cede power. On Wednesday, Turkey accused Syria of retaliating by allowing Kurdish rebels to start operating from Syrian territory.
“A presence and nesting of the terror organization that did not exist last year has been spotted there,” said Idris Naim Sahin, the Turkish interior minister, according to the semiofficial Anatolian News Agency.
Sahin claimed that the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, a major Kurdish rebel group, had taken control of a few Syrian towns along the Turkish border while the Assad government had turned a blind eye. The claims could not be independently confirmed.
Bloodshed continued Wednesday in Syria despite a United Nations-sponsored cease-fire plan. The Associated Press reported, citing an unidentified Syrian militaryofficial, that a bomb planted under a military bus detonated near the Damascus airport, killing one soldier and wounding 23. Anti-government activists said government troops had mounted rocket attacks on parts of the city of Homs and clashed with rebel fighters in Rastan, the AP reported.
In Lebanon, where tensions have been high recently after Syrian violence began to spill across the border, a fresh episode of gunfire broke out late Wednesday in a Beirut neighborhood near the Mediterranean Sea.
BAHRAIN
Bahrain has agreed to consider recommendations to release political prisoners, outlaw torture and join the International Criminal Court, a move that could open it to international prosecutions of purported abuses, the U.N.’s top human-rights body said Wednesday.
In its highly anticipated review of the Persian Gulf kingdom’s record, the U.N. Human Rights Council said Bahrain will consider 176 recommendations submitted byother nations. The council’s report, part of a process that all 193 U.N. members are required to undergo every four years, reflects international concern about the 15-month Bahraini uprising by majority Shiites against the ruling Sunni monarchy.
Nations are not required to adopt the recommendations of other countries included in the report, but often nations will reject recommendations without first agreeing to consider them.
LIBYA
Libya’s former prime minister will only be extradited to his country if his life isn’t in danger there and he can be guaranteed a fair trial, Tunisia’s presidential spokesman said Wednesday.
Al-Baghdadi Al-Mahmoudi was arrested in September after he illegally crossed the frontier into Tunisia as he tried to flee to Algeria, where members of Gadhafi’s family had sought refuge.
“Tunisia will not extradite Al-Baghdadi Al-Mahmoudi ... unless Libya can provide guarantees of a fair trial,”said presidential spokesman Adnan Mancer. “Tunisia will not send back Al-Mahmoudi if it believes there is a danger to his life.”
YEMEN
In other developments, Yemeni military officials said fresh clashes between government troops and al-Qaida fighters in the south killed 22 militants and seven soldiers.
The officials said the fighting around the town of Bajidar in Abyan province lasted until Wednesday morning. The town was captured more than a year ago by the militants who exploited the political turmoil during Yemen’s popular uprising.
The officials said government jets and heavy artillery pounded militant positions around the provincial capital Zinjibar and Jaar, also under al-Qaida’s control. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity in line with regulations.
Information for this article was contributed by Patrick J. Lyons of The New York Times; and by Albert Aji, Ben Hubbard, John Heilprin, Bouazza Ben Bouazza and Ahmed al-Haj of The Associated Press.
Front Section, Pages 4 on 05/24/2012