[On Wednesday May 18th, 2011, President Obama issued a letter addressed to both the Speaker of the House and the President of the Senate in regards to a new set of US sanctions on Syria. The letter was originally made public by The White House Press Secretary and can be found here.]
For Immediate Release
May 18, 2011
TEXT OF A LETTER FROM THE PRESIDENT TO THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES AND THE PRESIDENT OF THE SENATE
Dear Mr. Speaker: (Dear Mr. President:)
Pursuant to the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (50 U.S.C. 1701 et seq.) (IEEPA), I hereby report that I have issued an Executive Order (the "order") that takes additional steps with respect to the Government of Syria`s continuous escalation of violence against the people of Syria including through attacks on protestors, arrests and harassment of protestors and political activists, and repression of democratic change, overseen and executed by numerous elements of the Syrian government and with respect to the national emergency declared in Executive Order 13338 of May 11, 2004, relied upon for additional steps taken in Executive Order 13399 of April 25, 2006, and in Executive Order 13460 of February 13, 2008, and expanded in scope in Executive Order 13572 of April 29, 2011.
In Executive Order 13338, the President found that the actions of the Government of Syria constitute an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States and declared a national emergency to deal with that threat. To address that threat and to implement the Syria Accountability and Lebanese Sovereignty Restoration Act of 2003 (Public Law 108 175), the President in Executive Order 13338 blocked the property of certain persons and imposed additional prohibitions on certain transactions with respect to Syria. In Executive Order 13572, I expanded the scope of that national emergency and imposed additional sanctions.
The order blocks the property and interests in property of persons listed in the Annex to the order. The order also provides criteria for designations, and the resulting blocking of the property and interests in property, of persons determined by the Secretary of the Treasury, in consultation with the Secretary of State:
- to be a senior official of the Government of Syria;
- to be an agency or instrumentality of the Government of Syria, or owned or controlled, directly or indirectly, by the Government of Syria or by an official or officials of the Government of Syria;
- to have materially assisted, sponsored, or provided financial, material, or technological support for, or goods or services in support of, any person whose property and interests in property are blocked pursuant to the order; or
- to be owned or controlled by, or to have acted or purported to act for or on behalf of, directly or indirectly, any person whose property and interests in property are blocked pursuant to the order.
I have delegated to the Secretary of the Treasury the authority, in consultation with the Secretary of State, to take such actions, including the promulgation of rules and regulations, and to employ all powers granted to the President by IEEPA, as may be necessary to carry out the purposes of the order. I have also delegated to the Secretary of the Treasury, in consultation with the Secretary of State, the authority to determine that circumstances no longer warrant the blocking of the property and interests in property of a person listed in the Annex to the order, and to take necessary action to give effect to that determination.
The order was effective at 1:00 p.m. eastern daylight time on May 18, 2011. All executive agencies of the United States Government are directed to take all appropriate measures within their authority to carry out the provisions of the order.
I am enclosing a copy of the Executive Order I have issued.
Sincerely,
BARACK OBAMA
[Though not included in the White House version of the letter, the Executive Order is said to specify the following seven individuals (capitalization, official position, and date of birth included in various versions):
- Bashar AL-ASSAD (President of the Syrian Arab Republic, born September 11, 1965)
- Farouk AL-SHARA (Vice President, born 1938)
- Adel SAFAR (Prime Minister, born 1953)
- Mohammad Ibrahim AL-SHAAR (Minister of Interior, born 1950)
- Ali Habib MAHMOUD (Minister of Defense, born 1939)
- Abdul Fatah QUDSIYA (Head of Syrian Military Intelligence, born circa 1950)
- Mohammed Dib ZAITOUN (Director of Political Security Directorate, born circa 1952)]