Abdul Halim Khaddam, the former vice president who defected from the Syrian regime and a prominent leader in the Salvation Front, is preparing to launch his satellite television channel, “New Syria,” at the beginning of next August, after a long-awaited period. It is a channel whose creators say that it will be a free space in which the various Syrian political spectrums meet. In the government and the opposition. The appointment of the former director of the National Salvation Front office in the United States of America, Bashar Al-Subaie, raised a lot of controversy among the ranks of the Syrian opposition, given the positions he previously announced on many sensitive issues, especially those related to the position on religions and their role in political and human life.
The businessman and son of the former Syrian Vice President, Jihad Khaddam, confirmed in exclusive statements to Quds Press that the selection of Bashar Al-Subaie was based on purely professional criteria, considering that he graduated from American universities in film and television directing, and that he is an open liberal, and he worked as director of the Front Office. Salvation in the United States of America, and he was appointed to this position according to purely professional criteria, as he put it.
Khaddam called for caution in making prejudgments about the upcoming television, and said: “The upcoming television will reflect the opposition’s point of view and will be open to everyone without exception, including symbols of the ruling regime. The station will be 100 percent Syrian funded by a group of Syrian businessmen without interference.” External to any external party, the channel’s logo will be launched on the 1st of next August and will officially go on air on the 7th or 8th of next August.”
In Damascus, the editor-in-chief of the Syrian Al-Baath newspaper, Elias Murad, in exclusive statements to Quds Press, refused to comment on the launch of a new television channel close to Khaddam, nor on the appointment of Bashar Al-Subaie. He said: “This is premature, and in general this is not the first satellite channel directed to For Syria or against it, and we have to wait to see who will watch it.”
However, the Secretary of the Syrian Kurdish Yekiti Party, Hassan Saleh, expressed his welcome to the channel and described it as a qualitative shift in the media and political scenes in Syria. He said: “Any opposition channel that broadcasts is for the benefit of the opposition and for the benefit of the issue of democracy and exposing the regime. What is important is that it be a free platform and expose the regime’s shamelessness.” As for the doubts related to Abdul Halim Khaddam’s continued adherence to the Baath Party, we are waiting for what the channel can reveal and its positions, which we believe will be in the interest of resolving Kurdish issues in accordance with international law within the framework of national unity.”
In the British capital, London, the Muslim Brotherhood, one of the main pillars of the opposition National Salvation Front, welcomed the “New Syria” channel. The group’s spokesman, Dr. Zuhair Salem, confirmed in exclusive statements to “Quds Press” that the channel represents an important historical turning point in the political scene of modern and contemporary Syria. He said: "We welcome the channel and hope that it will be a window that expresses all segments of Syrian society and serves the national project for change. We do not judge any channel or any person until we see what he can offer. For your information, there is not a single channel directed against Syria." Elias Murad also spoke.
Salem explained that the prospective television channel will not be a spokesperson for the National Salvation Front nor under its supervision. He said: “The channel is a private institution, and has no official affiliation with the Salvation Front. If one of the parties to the Salvation Front supervises the channel in his personal capacity, then it does not work under political direction from the Salvation Front.” But it is an independent channel and everyone can benefit from it.
As for the appointment of Bashar Al-Subaie as director of the channel, we distinguish between two people regarding him: Bashar Al-Subaie as an individual who is free to do what he believes in, and Bashar Al-Subaie as a public figure, and his positions will appear through this channel if his positions are consistent with the aspirations of the Syrian people, but if things emerge that are forbidden God is different from that. We hope that Bashar Al-Subaie realizes that Damascus, Aleppo, and Hama are not American states, and that there is a nation in Syria that has standards different from American standards,” as he put it.
