A group of 14 Syrian intellectuals has set up a committee to fight against the 10-year-old embargo on Iraq, Syria's official SANA news agency said Monday.
"The embargo, unprecedented in human history, is a war of extermination against the Iraqi people and a flagrant violation of international law," the committee said in its founding statement.
"The destruction of Iraq is part of an imperialist-Zionist strategy seeking to weaken the Arab nation, particularly in the conflict with Israel, to force it to accept defeatist solutions," read the statement, reported by SANA.
A member of the committee, president of the Union of Arab Writers Ali Akla Arsan, told AFP the group would outline "an exact program" soon.
Syria has frequently called for the lifting of the embargo against Iraq, which was imposed following Baghdad's 1990 invasion of Kuwait.
Governed by rival factions of the Baath party, Syria and Iraq have recently started reconciling after decades of hostile relations.
Syria supported Iran in its 1980-88 war with Iraq and was part of the US-led coalition that ousted Iraq from Kuwait -- DAMASCUS (AFP)
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