CAIRO, Nov 30 (Reuters) - Arab states ramping up sanctions against Syria met with legal experts on Wednesday to hammer out a list of top Syrian officials to target with a travel ban and asset freeze, a leading Syrian opposition figure said.
Syria's government says the Arab League has declared "economic war" with sanctions imposed on its central bank after Damascus ignored demands to end a bloody nine-month crackdown on anti-government protests.
Nineteen of the League's 22 members on Sunday approved a raft of immediate sanctions including the travel ban, asset freeze and a halt to commercial flights to the country.
The regional body assigned a technical committee to come up with final details of the sanctions to be reviewed by ministers in Doha on Saturday.
"In today's meeting, the League's special committee is conducting talks with some international experts to come up with the best and most proper way to implement the Arab League's sanctions against Syrian officials," Abdel Baset Seda, a senior member of the opposition Syrian National Council, told Reuters.
He played down the chances that a final list of sanction targets would be announced on Wednesday. An official at the Arab League said it might release a statement about Wednesday's meeting later in the day.
Arab governments have always been loath to turn on one of their own, but the toppling of leaders in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya in popular uprisings this year has left others wary of finding themselves on the wrong side of events.
The League suspended Muammar Gaddafi's Libya from the body in March, paving the way for a Western-led air intervention that helped topple him.
But the move against Syria, which sits at the heart of a region criss-crossed by political, ethnic and religious divisions, came as a surprise to many.
Its neighbour and biggest trade partner, Turkey, stopped credit dealings and froze Syrian state assets on Wednesday. It said it may create a buffer zone to house Syrian refugees that it fears would flock to Turkey if the violence worsens.
A United Nations report on Monday accused Syrian forces of murder, torture and rape against pro-democracy protesters. The U.N. says more than 3,500 people have been killed since March. (Reporting and Writing by Yasmine Saleh)
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