Authors: Carmen Cox
Stockbyte/Thinkstock(WASHINGTON) -- For the second straight week the Treasury Department is preparing to announce new sanctions on Syrian entities as the Assad regime’s crackdown intensifies, U.S. officials tell ABC News.
This latest round of sanctions is expected to hit Syrian companies and will be announced later this week, the officials said. They declined to identify which companies would be designated.
The Obama administration is also still planning to declare that President Bashar Assad must go, something the White House weighed last week but decided not to do after the State Department voiced concerns. To date, the administration has only said that Assad has “lost legitimacy,” but stopped short of calling for his ouster.
The policy shift was evident Tuesday, when State Department spokesperson Victoria Nuland was asked about whether the administration would continue President Obama’s efforts to reach out to rogue regimes around the world.
“You can't have any kind of partnership with a regime that does this kind of thing to innocents,” Nuland said, signaling those efforts were over.
Copyright 2011 ABC News Radio
