U.S. urged to lift all unilateral sanctions on Syria: FM spokesperson

BEIJING, Feb. 13 (Xinhua) -- A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson on Monday urged the United States to lift all illegal unilateral sanctions on Syria immediately and stop creating humanitarian disasters.

According to media reports, the United States recently announced that it would provide six months of sanctions relief for Syria, limited to allowing certain transactions for recovery efforts following a deadly earthquake struck Syria and Türkiye a week ago.

"The U.S. government should immediately lift unilateral sanctions on Syria, instead of making a political show of 'temporary relief'," spokesperson Wang Wenbin told a daily news briefing in response to a related query.

Wang said the United States has consistently imposed military interventions and illegal unilateral sanctions on Syria for years, which has severely aggravated the crisis in the economy and people's livelihoods in Syria, and greatly weakened Syria's ability to cope with disasters.

After the earthquake, the unilateral sanctions posed by the U.S. side directly hindered the rescue efforts in the first 72 hours in Syria, which made the disaster even worse. As what Syrians have said, for the United States, it is all about politics, not humanitarianism, Wang added.

"We urge the U.S. side to put aside geopolitical calculations, lift all illegal unilateral sanctions on Syria immediately and stop deliberately creating humanitarian disasters," said Wang.