Saudi Arabia closes mission in Syria

Embassy in Damascus shut, all diplomats withdrawn.


Afp March 14, 2012

RIYADH: Saudi Arabia has shut down its embassy in Syria and has withdrawn all its staff, the Saudi foreign ministry announced on Wednesday in a statement carried by state news agency SPA.

"Due to the developments in Syria, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has shut down its embassy in Damascus and withdrawn all its diplomats and staff there," read the statement.

Saudi Arabia, which has repeatedly pressed for world action against Damascus and called for rebels to be armed, was one of six Gulf monarchies to expell Syria's ambassadors and withdraw their own in February.

Last week, the US had closed its embassy in Syria.

At least 8,500 people, most of them civilians, have been killed since the uprising against Syria's President Bashar al-Assad began in March 2011, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group.

COMMENTS (5)

D.Tsang | 12 years ago | Reply

How can one for certain there are 8500 Syrians killed, while none of the pro-west organizations or news media is allowed in the country? Is it being picked for the sake of convenience to convince the unsuspected? Remember the story of the young Kuwaiti girl claimed that she saw the Iraqi soldiers went into a hospital and killed many infants during the war between Iraq-Kuwait war, through the major west news, and it seemed no body questioned the authenticity of the story before broadcasting her story to the world? It turned out that the girl is the daughter of a Kuwaiti diplomat stationed in USA, and she was not even in the country at that time.

Tipu Sultan | 12 years ago | Reply

First of all the figure of 8500 is not independently confirmed by third parties, this figure has been worked out for media by the parties outside of Syria. Some will argue on UN but the UN seems biased player once again, yet giving one more reason to make this post-WWII organization redundant.

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