US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner on Wednesday called for economic sanctions against the Syrian government to force President Bashar al-Assad to stop violence against the Syrian people, DPA reported.
"As friends of the Syrian people, our task is to impose maximum financial pressure on the Assad regime and its supporters, as quickly as we can and as effectively as we can, to stop their violence," Geithner said during a meeting in Washington of the Friends of Syria.
It was the first meeting of the group, which comprises 55 countries, since last month's massacre in Houla, where pro-government militias are suspected of killing more than 100 people, almost half of them children.
"We gather in the shadow of a massacre. Nothing we say can adequately respond to such an event," Geithner said. But sanctions can play an important role."
"Strong sanctions, effectively implemented and aggressively enforced, can help deprive the Syrian regime of the resources it needs to sustain itself and to continue its repression of the Syrian people ... and strong sanctions can help hasten the day the Assad regime relinquishes power."
The United States, European Union and Arab states have all imposed sanctions on Syria. But the sanctions have failed to stop the violence.
Rebels fighting to overthrow al-Assad said this week they were abandoning a ceasefire announced by international envoy Kofi Annan on April 12, blaming government forces for disregarding the truce despite the presence of UN observers.
Arab countries said on Tuesday they were losing hope that Annan's plan would resolve the 15-month crisis.
"We have begun to lose hope in the possibility of reaching a solution ... within this framework," Saudi Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal said late Tuesday in the city of Jeddah.
He urged the UN Security Council, where Russia and China have vetoed Western-and Arab-backed draft resolutions condemning al-Assad's crackdown on the popular uprising, to apply Chapter 7 of the UN charter to Annan's plan, which could lead to authorizing the use of military force in Syria.
That possibility was also raised by German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle during a press conference in Abu Dhabi with UAE Foreign Minister Abdullah bin Zayed.
Russia, Syria's main ally, said it would work with China, to ensure Annan's plan works.
"(Opposition groups) outside Syria have appealed to the world community ...to bomb the al-Assad regime, to change this regime," Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told reporters, after President Vladimir Putin met with Chinese leaders in Beijing.
"This is very risky, I would even say it is a way that will bring the region to catastrophe," he added.
"We think it is necessary to call a meeting of countries that truly have an influence on various opposition groups," he added.
Lavrov named the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, the Arab League, the European Union, Turkey and Iran.
Arab League chief Nabil al-Arabi headed to New York for talks with UN officials on Syria, sources said in Cairo.
Continuing violence has dimmed hopes of a diplomatic solution to the conflict, raising fears of an all-out civil war.
At least 42 people were killed in violence across Syria on Wednesday, activists said.
Government forces clashed with rebels near the Syrian-Turkish border and in the Syrian capital Damascus, they said.
A Lebanese citizen was killed on the border with Syria during clashes with Syrian border guards, a Lebanese security official said.
"Our initial reports indicate that Syrian and Lebanese men were smuggling goods into the Syrian territories when they clashed with Syrian border guards," the official said.
Lebanon has in recent months foiled attempts to smuggle weapons into Syria, apparently bound for the rebels.
Al-Assad on Wednesday named Riad Farid Hijab, a senior official in the Baath Party that has ruled Syria for more than four decades, with forming the new government, the state news agency SANA reported.
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