PARIS, May 29: Governments around the world expelled Syrian ambassadors and diplomats on Tuesday, an unusual, coordinated blow to Syrian President Bashar Assad's regime following a gruesome massacre that the United Nations said involved close-range shootings of scores of children and parents in their homes.
The United States, the European Union, Canada and Australia and the Netherlands took action on Tuesday against Syrian diplomats.
Britain's foreign secretary said the countries involved in Tuesday's expulsions would also push for tougher sanctions against Syria.
The moves came after the killings on Friday in Houla, a collection of farming villages in Syria's Homs province — one of the deadliest single events in a 15-month-old uprising against Assad that has killed over 13,000.
A UN report on Tuesday said 49 children and 34 women were among the 108 people who died. “This is the most effective way we've got of sending a message of revulsion of what has happened in Syria,” Australian Foreign Minister Bob Carr said in Canberra. In a statement, he called the Houla killings a “hideous and brutal crime” and said Australia would not engage with the Syrian government unless it abides by a UN cease-fire plan.
Diplomats at the UN, the European Union and the Arab League have been working since the Houla massacre to coordinate new action against Syria's government, French Foreign Ministry spokesman Bernard Valero said.
The expulsions up the pressure on Syrian allies such as Russia. Russian President Vladimir Putin is travelling to Germany and France this week and is likely to come under even greater criticism of his Syria-supportive stance.
“We have to continue our work with the Russians,” British Foreign Secretary William Hague said. “We will continue to discuss this with Russia. Russia has particular leverage on the regime and therefore has a particular role in this crisis.”
Mr Hague said that the situation in Syria is more complicated than what international powers faced in Libya last year, when the United Nations approved intervention against dictator Moammar Qadhafi’s regime.
The US State Department said on Tuesday that the charge d'affaires at the Syrian Embassy has been given 72 hours to leave the United States. Syria has not had an ambassador in the US since the previous envoy left last year to take another post.State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said the US holds “the Syrian government responsible for this slaughter of innocent lives”.
Britain is expelling three Syrian diplomats to protest the Houla killings, among them Charge d'Affaires Ghassan Dalla — the country's top ranking diplomat in London.
In Canada, Foreign Minister John Baird said all Syrian diplomats and their families have five days to leave. —AP