Delegates from more than 60 countries supporting the Syrian rebels gathered Friday here and called for imposing more sanctions on the Syrian government led by President Bashar al-Assad.

The meeting was held by the Friends of the Syrian People International Working Group on Sanctions and co-chaired by Morocco, Japan and the European External Action Service, an organ of the European Union.

In a statement released after the meeting, the group said it welcomes the National Coalition which is newly founded by the Syrian rebels and called for members of the Friends of Syria to impose more sanctions on Syrian government.

This is the 5th meeting held by the working group. The first meeting was held in April in Paris and the last meeting was in Hague in September.

Crisis in Syria has lasted for 20 months and the situation there is still worsening. The international community endeavors to peacefully end the conflicts through dialogues.

According to UN estimates, more than 20,000 people, mostly civilians, have reportedly killed in Syria. A further 2.5 million Syrians urgently need humanitarian aid and over 340,000 have fled to other countries.