France is closing its embassy in Damascus, Syria, to denounce the "scandal" of the repression led by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's regime against its population, French President Nicolas Sarkozy announced Friday.
Speaking at a press conference after an EU summit meeting in Brussels, which stated that those responsible for the repression in Syria would be held accountable, Sarkozy said : "Foreign Minister Alain Juppe and myself have decided to close our embassy in Syria."
"What is happening is a scandal. More than 8,000 people have died, including hundreds of children, and the city of Homs is threatened to be to be wiped off the map. This is absolutely unaceeptable,” the French president added.
He stressed that the behavior of the Syrian authorities has been particularly "unacceptable" during attempts to evacuate two French journalists, one of them injured, who have been trapped for several days in the besieged Syrian city of Homs.
The journalists, photographer Daniel Williams and Edith Bouvier, a reporter for the daily Le Figaro, finally escaped to Lebanon and are expected to be flown back to France later on Friday.
Referring to the text of the EU summit conclusions, EU President Herman Van Rompuy told reporters that EU leaders expressed their "horror" at the atrocities committed in Syria. "Those responsible for these appalling atrocities will be held accountable and will have to respond to courts," he said, in an apparent reference to the international Criminal Court in The Hague.
He said the EU supports efforts by the Arab League to end the violence in Syria.
EU leader urged all members of the United Nations Security Council, in particular Russia and China, two countries which have until now be supporting the Syrian regime, to work together in an effort to stop the violence.
Van Rompuy said that there are signals of some “movement” in the position of the two countries.
The EU leaders also said that EU would prepare additional sanctions against Syria, already subject to an arms and oil embargo.