Former Vice President of the Syrian Republic, Abdul Halim Khaddam, has declared that he will form a Syrian government in exile.
He added, in statements to the German magazine Der Spiegel: "I believe that Bashar al-Assad will be ousted from power during the current year," referring to the pressures to which the regime is exposed in his country due to economic and foreign problems due to the investigation into the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.
Khaddam said: “His downfall has already begun and I don't think his regime will last until the end of this year. »
Khaddam indicated that he would not exclude any political group committed to democracy from the government in exile: "The mistake of the Americans towards the Iraqi Ba'ath Party should not be repeated with the Syrian Ba'ath Party, because the majority of Ba'athists in Syria are against the regime. and they see the government’s mistakes every day.”
Change the Regime
Khaddam recently called for changing the structure of the current Syrian regime so that absolute power does not remain in the hands of the president, but is transferred to democratic constitutional institutions.
In a recent interview with BBC Arabic, Khaddam said he was not in favor of any involvement of the military in the change process and believed that change had to come from within Syria.
Khaddam said in the interview that the Syrian regime's foreign policy is confused, leading it to make bad decisions, such as the decision to extend the mandate of Lebanese President Emile Lahoud, who led the Syrian army to leave Lebanon in a humiliating manner.
In response to a question about the reason for the timing of his statements, knowing that the situation in Syria is not new and existed when he was part of the regime, he said that the situation is different now because in the past there was a strong ally of Syria, which was the Soviet Union, but now it is necessary to strengthen national unity and the participation of the people in determining their fate and to end the confiscation freedoms and pressure on livelihoods
Khaddam said he had no authority over the security services suppressing intellectual forums, because all authority was in the hands of President Bashar al-Assad, as he put it.
“I don’t have proof, but facts.”
Khaddam added that he had no proof of the Syrian president's involvement in the assassination of Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, although he relied on facts that President Bashar al-Assad himself told him. reported, as he said, including his threat to Hariri to crush him.
He said he did not believe Syria would send 50,000 troops to Iraq and that it was a rumor spread by the regime to reassure the population that there was an agreement with the United States. .
In response to a question about whether Khaddam had contacted an Arab regime, Khaddam denied this and said his contacts were only with the internal opposition, where opposition leaders discussed ways to change the regime with a view to passing at the planning stage, then work.
He also denied the existence of any contacts between him and the French state and confirmed that he had entered France on a regular visa and had no intention of seeking political asylum there.
Khaddam said Bashar al-Assad will be judged for his actions and that he resigned "because the Syrian president rejected his advice to carry out political and economic reforms and unleash freedoms."
