"(Reuters) - Syria is struggling to meet its grain import needs because of sanctions, raising the risk of bread shortages that could sap public support for President Bashar al-Assad as he tries to snuff out a 15-month-old uprising.
Trade sources said a reluctance among foreign banks, shipowners and grain traders to sell to import-dependent Syria - even though food is not itself subject to sanctions - has forced Damascus into an array of unusually small deals, many arranged by shadowy middlemen around the Middle East and Asia.
On Friday, in what might prove to be a turning point on a path toward a politically corrosive food crisis, government data showed the domestic grain harvest falling well short of target and the state grains agency failing to find a single acceptable offer to fulfill a major import tender it issued last month to buy animal feed for its livestock farmers.....
"While Syria's ally Iran has rather creatively sought to evade its own sanctions noose, Damascus has neither the experience nor the resources available to Tehran with which to play a prolonged cat-and-mouse game," the Atlantic Council's Pham said. "The Assad regime's foreign currency reserves are simply depleting at a rate faster than it can replenish them.""
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