Syria's president asks former communications minister to form a new government

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BEIRUT (AP) — Syrian President Bashar Assad issued a decree Saturday in which he named former Communications Minister Mohammed Ghazi Jalali as the head of the new government following July’s parliamentary election, state media reported.

Jalali, 55, has been under European Union sanctions since October 2014 over the government crackdown during Syria’s conflict that has left nearly half a million people dead since 2011.

As a government minister, he was “collectively responsible for the regime’s violent repression against the civilian population,” the EU said at the time of announcing the sanctions. Jalali was communications minister for nearly two years starting in August 2014, according to the state news agency SANA.

Syria’s outgoing government has been in a caretaker capacity since the mid-July parliamentary election. It's not clear how long it will take Jalali to form a new Cabinet.

The EU first started imposing sanctions on Syria in 2011. The measures also include a ban on oil imports, investment restrictions, a freeze on central bank assets held in the EU, and export limits on equipment and technology that could be used to crack down on civilians or to monitor their phones and internet.