EU steps up pressure on Syrian regime

The European Union's political and security committee is meeting Friday in Brussels to discuss potential broadening of sanctions and to look at different ways to put additional pressure on the regime in Syria, an EU spokesman told reporters here today. Michael Mann, spokesperson for EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, said the EU has already put four set of sanctions against Syrian regime officials and companies for human rights abuses. On Monday , he said, there is a special meeting of UN Human rights Council in Geneva called on the initiative of the EU to look at human rights abuses in Syria The EU has tabled a resolution calling for an international commission of inquiry into the human rights abuses in Syria . This has wide support already and it needs a simple majority of the 46 members of the Council for this inquiry to go ahead, added Mann. On Thursday, Ashton issued a strong-worded statement condemning "in the strongest terms the brutal campaign Bashar al-Assad and his regime are waging against their own people. " Ashton said the regime of Bashar al-Assad's has lost legitimacy in the eyes of the Syrian people and called on him to step aside.