Former Syrian vice-president Abdul Halim Khaddam said the regime of President Bashar Al Assad is incapable of reform and must be overthrown, in remarks published yesterday.
Khaddam, who oversaw Syria’s influence over neighbouring Lebanon for 25 years, also said he would meet soon with members of the UN panel investigating last February’s assassination of former Lebanese premier Rafik Hariri.
Senior Syrian officials have been implicated in the murder, but Damascus has denied any involvement in the killing, or those of three other prominent Lebanese opposition figures since then. “This regime cannot be reformed. The only alternative is to overthrow it,” Khaddam told the pan-Arab daily Asharq Al Awsat, speaking from Paris where he and his family now live.
‘Country in danger’
Khaddam caused an uproar a week ago when he said Bashar had personally threatened Hariri a few months before he was murdered, dealing a fresh blow to the increasingly pressured regime.
Khaddam told the Arabic newspaper that he was “working to bring about the suitable conditions for Syrians to pour into the streets and act to overthrow the Syrian regime so that things go well … Syria is in danger. She is isolated as a result of the regimes policies, and national unity is threatened.
“When the country is in danger, it is necessary to reinforce national unity and… the domestic front.”
Khaddam said he has not asked other nations to help Syria’s opposition. “I did not contact anybody because change has to come from within. If the main vector for change is external, then the interests of the country are harmed.”
