Syria is planning to join the Customs Union of Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan soon, RIA Novosti reported, citing Syrian Deputy Prime Minister Kadri Jamil.

“I think we will join the Customs Union in the near future,” Jamil told the agency on the sidelines of a news conference in Moscow.

Jamil, who is in charge of economic issues, led a delegation of Syrian ministers at talks with Russian government officials, including Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Khloponin and First Deputy Foreign Minister Andrei Denisov, earlier this week.

The leader of Syria’s opposition Popular Front for Change and Liberation, Jamil joined the new government appointed by President Bashar al-Assad in June as part of his belated efforts to reconcile with the opposition.

Damascus has been considering joining the Customs Union for three years now, Jamil said. But economic cooperation with Russia is growing increasingly important for Damascus as it has been struggling to sustain Syria’s economy which has been hit by sanctions imposed on the Assad regime by the European Union and the United States, he added.

Those sanctions, he said, demonstrated that the position of Western governments was “hypocritical” and “wrong.”

“They say that they attack the Syrian regime, but if fact, they attack each Syrian citizen,” he said.

More than 20 million Syrians have been badly affected by the sanctions, Said Hneidi, the minister in charge of Syria’s oil industry
who was also part of the delegation, said.

Last week, the European Union approved a new, 17th set of sanctions against Syria, including a tougher arms embargo, in response to the escalating violence in the Arab country. Western powers say that the bulk of responsibility for the bloodshed lies with the Syrian government, and insist on Assad’s resignation as the only way to end the crisis which has already claimed up to 20,000 lives, according to Syrian activists.