The official spokeswoman, Buthaina Shaaban, preferred to wait for the end of the conference before commenting on Khaddam’s resignation. Khaddam left political life in objection to dealing with (1559)

One of the members of the political committee at the Baath Party conference confirmed that Vice President Abdel-Halim Khaddam did not attend the committee’s meetings yesterday.

A committee member told (Al-Youm) that Abdel-Halim Khaddam announced at the beginning of his speech in an evening session the day before yesterday that he is resigning from his government and party positions. He then began criticizing Syrian foreign policy, continuing to speak for more than an hour, while the allocated time for each member is five minutes. This led the Minister of Foreign Affairs to repeatedly call on Farouk Al-Sharaa, the head of the political committee, to interrupt him.

During the daily press conference, Dr. Buthaina Shaaban, the official spokesperson for the Tenth Congress of the Baath Party, refrained from directly responding to a question regarding the news of Khaddam submitting his resignation to the conference or stepping down from all his party and political positions. Shaaban stated that Comrade Abdel-Halim Khaddam, the Vice President, is still present in the party, and everything will become clear at the end of the conference. However, with the conference taking place, the entire party leadership is considered dissolved, and the fate of the Qatari leadership will be known at the end of the conference. She mentioned that Khaddam made a one-hour intervention, unlike the other members.

She denied that Khaddam launched an attack on Foreign Minister Farouk Al-Sharaa, the head of the political committee, and on Syria’s foreign political performance. She considered his statements in the conference to be deep, constructive, and calm.

Various political and media sources pointed out that Abdel-Halim Khaddam, the Vice President of Syria, strongly criticized Syria’s foreign policy, particularly its handling of the Lebanese file. He criticized the way Syria reacted to the issuance of Resolution 1559, leading to a verbal altercation between him and Farouk Al-Sharaa, the Foreign Minister, who responded to Khaddam by reminding him that he was out of the country when the resolution was issued, and thus, he cannot evaluate the actions taken at that time.