EU expands sanctions on Syria

The European Union targeted three Syrian companies in an expanded sanctions list on Saturday, including a real estate bank, an investment group and a transport firm, the EU's Official Journal showed.

The sanctions mean that Europeans will be banned from doing business with the companies - Real Estate Bank, Mada Transport and Cham Investment Group.

Four Syrian businessmen were also added to a list of people affected by EU asset freezes and travel bans.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov condemned on Saturday sanctions imposed on Syria by the European Union, saying they "will lead to nothing good".

"We have always said that unilateral sanctions will lead to nothing good. This ruins the partnership approach to any crisis," Lavrov told reporters on the sidelines of a summit of ex-Soviet states in the Tajik capital Dushanbe. "We are against unilateral sanctions."

'Assad carried out massacres'

The EU decided to impose sanctions on Syrian oil exports on Friday, saying President Bashar al-Assad was massacring his own countrymen.

"President Assad is carrying out massacres in his own country," Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski said in the Polish resort of Sopot where EU foreign ministers had met to set out their response to Assad's military crackdown on five months of protests against his 11-year rule.

"The whole international community is urging him to relinquish power."

A US and European push to impose UN Security Council sanctions on Syria had met fierce resistance from Russia and China.

Russia has long had close ties with Syria and is one of its main arms supplirs. One of the proposed sanctions is an arms embargo that would make it illegal for Russian firms to sell weapons to Damascus.

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