Talk:International sanctions against Syria

This article is about sanctions. Any entries about how much humanitarian aid is provided by the US or other countries will be deleted. USAID has nothing to do with sanctions and the dollar value of the aid could not be verified. Osterluzei (talk) 07:10, 19 February 2023 (UTC)

Removal of important info

I am a little baffled by the removal of the following passages by Bobisland, originally included by Shadowwarrior8:

Despite the sanctions, Western countries continue to fund billions of dollars in humanitarian aid to Syria, with the United Nations transporting billions of dollars of aid annually to Syria, which more than 90% funded by the four sanctioning entities, the US, EU, UK and Canada.

<no wiki>=== After the 2023 Turkey–Syria earthquake ===

Main article: Humanitarian response to the 2023 Turkey–Syria earthquake

</no wiki>

The devastating earthquakes that occurred in February 2023 contributed to the increase in the suffering of Syrians in both government- and opposition-controlled areas. Although sanctions did not stop the flow of aid from countries such as Egypt, Jordan and the United Arab Emirates arriving in government-controlled areas, the Assad government invoked the earthquakes in demanding that Western countries remove all the remaining sanctions.

Fund-raising and money transfer platforms such as GoFundMe initially only allowed transfers to registered NGOs, for fear of non-compliance with US sanctions.

This seems pretty fundamental to me, and mostly well sourced (with scope for improvement). BobFromBrockley (talk) 14:47, 23 February 2023 (UTC)

Additional sources to supplement MEI/MEE:

• primary: "Syrian Arab Republic 2022". UNOCHA Financial Tracking Service. Retrieved 23 February 2023.
• secondary: Gavlak, Dale (15 February 2023). "Powerful Earthquakes Shake Political Fortunes in Turkey, Syria". VOA. Retrieved 23 February 2023.

BobFromBrockley (talk) 14:55, 23 February 2023 (UTC)

References

The top is in positions, the 2nd I moved to impact on civilians and positions as it wasn’t a sanction and later specified that the timeline was a sanctions timeline, I removed donations as I didn’t want to keep adding commentary on donations regardless of sanctions as it's already represented in the wiki page and not related to sanctions, I don’t want to add a back and fourth on specific donations of what was excluded/included for neutrality which will add very little information to the Syrian sanctions, I moved the 3rd to positions and gave it better wording based on its source Bobisland (talk) 15:17, 23 February 2023 (UTC)

I don't understand what you're arguing here. If RSs, in articles about sanctions, say sanctions don't prevent aid, that's incredibly relevant. I'm also not sure why we would want to expand the "positions" section to include factual accounts of the story. BobFromBrockley (talk) 17:34, 23 February 2023 (UTC)

The information was already in the lead of four sentences followed by the information of blocked aid due to contradicting and new sanctions which I added based on WP:NPOV proportion and used WP:OUROWNWORDS as many sources in the page supported its wording, the information on the U.N specifically donating is in positions as it’s related to someone’s position point and shouldn’t be in the lead as it’s not proportionately representing other donations or relative as this article is about Syria sanctions, the lead also emphasizes Arab state calls for lifting sanctions and not all the other sources calling for them to be lifted which is again disproportionate of the wiki page and subject in general, it also doesn’t explain why there were calls for sanctions to be lifted which is represented in many sources, in general it was a very disproportionate entry Bobisland (talk) 17:56, 23 February 2023 (UTC)

Finding it difficult to disentangle this long sentence. There is a brief summary in the lead because it's the lead's job to summarise the body - see WP:LEAD. The detail should be in the relevant part of the body. The fact that sanctioning bodies donate via the UN is not "someone's position point", it's a factual claim.

Not sure what this means: it also doesn’t explain why there were calls for sanctions to be lifted which is represented in many sources. What is the "it" there? BobFromBrockley (talk) 18:11, 23 February 2023 (UTC)

The edit in the lead and there are far more relevant things to add to the lead on Syria sanctions other than emphasizing U.N donations which aren’t influenced by any sanctions, this is something that should be in the lead of Humanitarian aid during the Syrian civil war because this page isn’t about the donations of countries placing sanctions and the information is only represented in someone’s position Bobisland (talk) 19:15, 23 February 2023 (UTC)

The positions section should be devoted to the opinions of countries, organizations and specialists about the impact of sanctions and the extent of their legitimacy in accordance with international law. Texts not related to this should not be entered. This will make the article unreadable. Sentence repetition is also present in it, especially by user Shadowwarrior8 as they do not appear to be reading edit summaries. Also, unreferenced content should not be deleted immediately. Otherwise, what is the purpose of this template?--Sakiv (talk) 19:57, 23 February 2023 (UTC)

Oil

I've removed a Politico link that doesn't support the content it was appended to, but it might be useful nonetheless, along with the Reuters source it cites:

• Seligman, Lara; Lefebvre, Ben (3 August 2020). "Little-known U.S. firm secures deal for Syrian oil". POLITICO. Retrieved 23 February 2023.
• Reuters (2 August 2020). "Syria says U.S. oil firm signed deal with Kurdish-led rebels". Reuters U.S. Archived from the original on 4 August 2020. Retrieved 23 February 2023. {{cite web}}: |author= has generic name (help)

Would it be DUE to say something about US oil deals in NE Syria? Both articles mention sanctions, but might be too tangential. BobFromBrockley (talk) 18:13, 23 February 2023 (UTC)

Oh I see my edit has been reverted with the edit summary Reverted edit based on false merits due to it supporting information, entries aren’t on a word for word of basis of sources WP:OUROWNWORDS. The text currently says: Faisal Mekdad, Syria's Foreign Minister, estimated that the country has been deprived of $107 billion in oil and gas earnings since 2011 due to sanctions and the U.S exporting Syrian crude oil from areas under U.S and U.S ally control. The first source is a website called International Banker, which I've never heard of, which says Due to the West’s “economic terrorism”, Mekdad claimed, Syria had lost an estimated $107 billion in oil and gas revenues since 2011, leading to further economic woes. The claim was made in November 2022. Politico, whose article is published over two years earlier, in March 2020, does not mention Mekdad and does not mention the $107 billion. I don't know how we can use it as a source for this claim. BobFromBrockley (talk) 18:19, 23 February 2023 (UTC)

They’re used as sources to support entries into Wikipedia, Wikipedia entries aren’t on a word for word basis of sources, users use their own wording, it’s a supporting source WP:OUROWNWORDS Bobisland (talk) 19:18, 23 February 2023 (UTC)

Of course but the citation needs to support the factual claim being made. A source written two years before a statement simply can't be a source for that statement in a world where time travel doesn't exist. That's not using your own wording; it's something very different. BobFromBrockley (talk) 10:47, 24 February 2023 (UTC)

I've removed the Politico ref again, as 1RR time period is over and it's totally un-encyclopedic to use the source in this way. If there's some relevant text to add to the article based on the source, please do so. BobFromBrockley (talk) 14:07, 27 February 2023 (UTC)

It mentions both the sanctions and the export, why does the timeline of articles publications matter when the sanctions have been in place prior? I’m using it to support information Bobisland (talk) 22:52, 27 February 2023 (UTC)

But the information it currently supports is "Faisal Mekdad, Syria's Foreign Minister, estimated that the country has been deprived of $107 billion in oil and gas earnings since 2011 due to sanctions and the U.S exporting Syrian crude oil from areas under U.S and U.S ally control." He made the claim in November 2022, so his estimate covers the period 2011-2022. How does the 2020 Politico ref support this? Can you quote the relevant bit of the Politico article that supports this information? BobFromBrockley (talk) 10:32, 28 February 2023 (UTC)

"False information"

Re this edit, the removed material is not "false information"; it's carefully extracted accurately from the sources cited. The revised version is inaccurate and pushes a point of view.

1. Medical supplies are exempt from sanctions.
2. A convoluted sentence with "regardless of" in the middle is not better wording
3. "A Italian" is bad English, not better wording than "One Italian"
4. Fear of sanction compliance rather than sanctions themselves affect money transfer
5. The word "ban" is loaded and has a particular meaning; it's not what the money transfer companies did
6. the withdrawal of aid to areas under non-government control after the rise of ISIL was the main topic of the cited article so deleting this to make it seem as if the article was only about the impact of sanctions is distorting
7. After the earthquake "charity fundraising attempts" were not "banned"

Re this edit, the fact that Middle East Eye is not deprecated does not justify removal of a better source tag. There is no consensus as to MEE's reliability and it would be better to use a stronger source.

I am not sure if this article falls under the WP:1RR rule so I will not revert this, but I urge Bobisland to self-revert or other editors to help makes this article NPOV and well-written. BobFromBrockley (talk) 10:45, 24 February 2023 (UTC)

No it wasn’t and it deleted information on medicines not being able to be sent due to sanctioned chemicals in medicine along other poor wording including calling charity as individuals

1. And 2. Many sanctions have led to medicines being illegal to sell to Syria regardless of sanction exemptions which is what I specified

3. Based on Oxford A is better wording compared to One

4. Both sanctions and fear of sanction compliance have led to the blocking of financial transaction attempts, which themselves are the outcome of sanctions

5. Technically it’s correct wording but I get your point I’ll replace it with suspended or blocked

6. Yes and the effect by sanctions caused more spending on paperwork, adding this detail as a cause to why spending had increased is very poor wording as it implies it caused more spending and not the sanctions themselves, which is the cause of the entire issue

7. Yes they were I think your confusing the definition of ban with something else, I’ll replace it with blocked and suspended accounts attempting to

Ok I’ll re-add it although the source is referenced a lot in mainstream media Bobisland (talk) 11:55, 24 February 2023 (UTC)

Re 2 and 3 I've now edited again to make the sentences actually make sense in English, without changing the meaning. Re 6, I've also edited again as I don't think it's acceptable for us to make a claim about a specific amount of money that doesn't accurately summarise the source. I can add a quote to the ref to make it even clearer. BobFromBrockley (talk) 14:09, 27 February 2023 (UTC)

Ok sounds good Bobisland (talk) 22:21, 27 February 2023 (UTC)

A few edits for the better

Just had to revise the text again, after some readers placed the sanction relief by the US and Europe under "positions". Clearly sanctions relief by the US and Europe is not a "position" but an "action". Now people who had nothing to say when the quake hit but now come in and place their old hats from the "Economist", then I might get a bit energetic. Also this page is about sanctions and not about humanitarian relief efforts. We can place such efforts in here if they address the regional crisis, but we should not overlap sanctions relief and humanitarian efforts too much because they are essentially not the same thing. Osterluzei (talk) 08:51, 27 February 2023 (UTC)

I support Osterluzei's edit in restoring the earthquake sub-section to the history section. As I argued above, it's obviously an action not a position. I don't understand the comments about the old hats from the Economist. You're not suggesting The Economist is an unreliable source are you? I can't see what edits you believe made the page about humanitarian relief efforts. It seems to me that RSs link the two, because they're obviously linked. See e.g.:

• Schaer, Cathrin (21 February 2023). "Syria earthquake: Did EU, US sanctions stop aid deliveries? – DW – 02/21/2023". dw.com. Retrieved 27 February 2023.
• "State Department hits back at claims that sanctions are blocking Syria earthquake aid". Al Arabiya English. 8 February 2023. Retrieved 27 February 2023.
• Dadouch, Sarah (8 February 2023). "Why is it so hard to help Syria's earthquake victims?". Washington Post. Retrieved 27 February 2023.
• Sweeney, Lucy (25 February 2023). "The earthquake that rocked Syria devastated millions already ravaged by war. Their dictator Bashar al-Assad saw an opportunity - ABC News". ABC. Retrieved 27 February 2023.
• Kosova, Wes (16 February 2023). "How Heavily Sanctioned Syria Is Getting Aid From the West: Big Take Podcast". Bloomberg.com. Retrieved 27 February 2023.

BobFromBrockley (talk) 14:01, 27 February 2023 (UTC)

PS I also agree with Bobisland that the sub-head about earthquakes should be in both sections. BobFromBrockley (talk) 10:35, 28 February 2023 (UTC)

Reactions are not positions

Please adhere to logic, reactions by countries to the earthquake (and sanctions) are not positions but actions. Furthermore Ukrainian issues find no place in post-earthquake politics. Please don't add Ukraine to the conflict there. And please don't delete official quotes by the US State Department.Osterluzei (talk) 18:21, 13 April 2023 (UTC)

Subject on recent edits related to sanctions timeline

The Ukraine sanctions were removed and relations/positions on sanctions were placed in the sanctions timeline, I would like to re-add the Ukraine sanctions and remove the relations/positions to sanctions from the sanctions timeline as there are already corresponding places on wikipedia to put them Bobisland (talk) 10:15, 17 April 2023 (UTC)

Also the removal of other content such as positions and etc Bobisland (talk) 20:58, 19 April 2023 (UTC)