SYRIA/FILE: United Nations observers, journalists and locals watch Syrian President Bash al-Assad as he announces his government reshuffle

Record ID: 280939

  • Title: SYRIA/FILE: United Nations observers, journalists and locals watch Syrian President Bash al-Assad as he announces his government reshuffle
  • Date: 24th June 2012
  • Summary: DAMASCUS, SYRIA (FILE) (REUTERS) VARIOUS OF QADRI JAMEEL, MINISTER OF DEMOSTIC TRADE AND DEPUTY PRIME MINISTER OF ECONOMIC AFFAIRS, SHAKING HANDS WITH REPORTERS CLOSE OF JAMEEL MORE OF JAMEEL CAMERAS JAMEEL WITH ALI HEIDAR, STATE MINISTER OF NATIONAL RECONCILIATION REPORTERS
  • Embargoed: 9th July 2012 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Syrian Arab Republic
  • Country: Syria
  • Topics: Conflict,International Relations,Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVACL33U3H0BS8H8NGX3PREP51ZA
  • Story Text: Syrian President Bashar al-Assad issued a decree to form a new government on Saturday (June 23), shaking up many cabinet posts but keeping the heads of the interior, defence and foreign ministries, state television reported.
    The reappointment of Defence Minister Daoud Rajha will quash widespread rumours, previously denied by the government, that he had been assassinated by rebels who are struggling to bring down President Bashar al-Assad's rule.
    The 16-month uprising, which has faced a brutal government crackdown, is increasingly being termed a civil war by foreign observers.
    Assad argues he is pursuing reforms even as he fights a revolt he says is led by foreign-backed militants.
    Nada Al-Eita, a local resident, said she merely wanted the country to be able to pick itself up again, regardless of who was in charge.
    "I hope Syria returns to what it was. If this is the government's job I hope they work on this. And if this was other people's job I hope they work on it", she said.
    Critics say Assad's appointment of Riyad Hijab as prime minister earlier in June was a sign the president was turning to hardline loyalists.
    Hijab formed the new government given Assad's approval, Syria TV said on Saturday.
    Hijab, a former agriculture minister, is a committed member of Assad's Baath Party, which has ruled Syria for nearly four decades since his father Hafez al-Assad took power in 1970.
    Most of the top government posts were given to Baathist loyalists. Critics consider the cabinet to be largely symbolic and say power in Syria remains in the hands of Assad and his close inner circle of family and security force elites.
    The new cabinet follows a May 7 parliamentary election which Assad said was part of the path to reform but the opposition boycotted as a sham, insisting the president must step down.
    Other than Rajha, the ministers to retain their post were Interior Minister Mohammed Ibrahim al-Shaar and Foreign Minister Walid al-Moualem.
    Several new ministries were created in the new cabinet.
    The moderate Qadri Jamil, a centrist who has said he is speaking both to the government and to rebels, was appointed minister of internal commerce and consumer protection.
    The post is newly formed and likely to be mostly ceremonial.
    While the new cabinet was being reformed, Chief of UN Supervision Mission, Robert Mood, returned to Syria after giving his six-week briefing to the international mediator Kofi Annan.
    The former U.N. secretary-general said he wanted states with influence on both sides of the conflict to be involved in the peace plan and urged countries not to act individually.
    He also said Iran should be part of the solution, a week before a planned crisis meeting that is in doubt because of Western objections to the Islamic Republic's participation.
    Escalating violence in Syria forced the United Nations observers to suspend their operations last Saturday (June 16).
    Mood said the fighting posed a threat to his unarmed observers, one of whose patrols was fired upon four days earlier, and prevented them from carrying out their mandate to oversee Annan's widely ignored April 12 ceasefire.
    The Norwegian peacekeeper blamed both government troops and rebels for the relentless conflict, in which President Bashar al-Assad's forces are trying to crush an increasingly well-armed insurgency which grew out of a 15-month-old wave of protests.
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