Clinton Urges Syria’s Allies to Get on ‘Right Side of History’

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton today urged nations doing business with Syria to “get on the right side of history” by cutting off trade and arms sales to the regime of President Bashar al-Assad.

Citing a “crescendo of condemnation” against Assad’s repression and violence, Clinton used an appearance with reporters at the State Department to make a public appeal for increasing the international pressure building against the Syrian government.

“We urge those countries still buying Syrian oil and gas, those countries still sending Assad weapons, those countries whose political and economic support give him comfort in his brutality, to get on the right side of history,” Clinton said.

Syria, whose oil production is declining, produces about 386,000 barrels of crude a day and has the ninth-largest oil reserves in the Middle East, according to data from BP Plc.

“We are consulting closely with partners around the world and we expect to see action,” she added later.

While she declined to name any specific countries doing business with Syria during the brief press conference, she singled out China, India and Russia in an interview yesterday with CBS News.

“We want to see China take steps with us,” Clinton told CBS, according to a transcript of the interview. “We want to see India, because India and China have large energy investments inside of Syria. We want to see Russia cease selling arms to the Assad regime.”

More than 2,000 Syrian protesters have been killed since the revolt against the Assad government began in March, following the uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt that became known as the Arab Spring. Syrian security forces have detained more than 30,000 people, with some in cages, State Department spokesman Victoria Nuland said yesterday.

While U.S. officials have declined to call for Assad to step down, they have said repeatedly that the Syrian leader has “lost legitimacy” and the country would be better off without him.

“We are trying and succeeding at putting together an international effort so there will be no temptation on the part of anyone inside the Assad regime to claim that it’s only the United States, or maybe that it’s only the West,” Clinton said today. “Indeed, it’s the entire world. We’re making the case to our international partners to intensify the financial and political pressure to get the Syrian government to cease its brutality against its own citizens.”

She said the U.S. is reaching out to political opponents of Assad “inside and outside of Syria to encourage them to create a unified vision of what an inclusive, participatory, democratic system in Syria could look like.”

Pointing to the recent United Nations statement against the Syria regime and condemnations from the Arab League and the Gulf Cooperation Council, Clinton said, “There’s a lot of work going on and I think that work is paying off.”

Syria’s economic growth is forecast to slow to 3 percent this year from 3.2 percent in 2010, the International Monetary Fund said in April, while the Institute of International Finance estimates the economy may contract 3 percent in 2011.