Free Republic

Damascus: The Syrian government has officially asked interpol to arrest former vice President Abdul Halim Khaddam so he can face charges of treason and corruption. The request states that he should be turned over to Damascus so he can be questioned for charges including inciting a foreign country to attack Syria. Khaddam, who lives in France, gave an interview in December in which he said that Syrian president Bashar Al Assad had threatened former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri just months before he was assassinated. It is unlikely that France will agree to the request as Khaddam has lived...

CAIRO, Egypt - Syrian President Bashar Assad denied threatening Lebanon's former prime minister but suggested in an interview published Saturday that he would not allow U.N. investigators to interview him about Rafik Hariri's killing. Syria's former vice president Abdul-Halim Khaddam, who defected to France, told The Associated Press on Friday that Assad had threatened Hariri during their last meeting. "I don't know what others meant by threatening," Assad was quoted as saying in the Egyptian opposition weekly al-Osboa. "This never happened and the aim was to connect the threat with the assassination. The game is clear. Nobody attended the last...

A former vice president of Syria called from exile for the overthrow of the regime he served for decades, saying Friday that "a shameless mafia" is running the country and that its president surrounds himself with sycophantic advisers and is unfit to rule. Abdul-Halim Khaddam, now accused by Syria of treason, stopped just short of accusing President Bashar Assad of involvement in the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. Khaddam told The Associated Press in an interview that Hariri was "threatened in a crystal-clear way on numerous occasions" before his death in a truck bombing last year _...

Khaddam calls for Syrian revolt     Khaddam was at the heart of Syrian politics for over 20 years Former Syrian Vice-President Abdul Halim Khaddam wants to oust President Bashar al-Assad through a popular uprising, he told an Arabic newspaper.Mr Khaddam told the Pan-Arab al-Sharq al-Awsat that the pressure for change had to come from within Syria. On Thursday, he said Mr Assad should go to prison for complicity in the murder of former Lebanese PM Rafik Hariri. A UN-led inquiry implicated Syria in the murder, but Damascus denies any involvement in the killing. 'Reform impossible'Speaking from Paris, where he...

BEIRUT, Lebanon - A former Syrian vice president who has openly broken with President Bashar Assad intensified his criticism Thursday, saying the Damascus regime had outlived its time and was unlikely to survive much longer. Abdul-Halim Khaddam, who left his post in the Syrian government in June, was asked in an exclusive interview with The Associated Press interview from Paris whether he supported regime change. Yes," he replied adding that he had no personal interest in leading the drive to oust Assad. "This is the least of my concerns. What concerns me is for the Syrian people to recover their...

AP News Alert BEIRUT, Lebanon (AP) -- A U.N. spokesperson says the U.N. commission investigating the assassination of a Lebanese politician wants to question Syria's president.

Exile enrages Syria by linking Assad to Hariri assassination By Harry de Quetteville (Filed: 02/01/2006) Syria's ruling Ba'ath party yesterday expelled one of the country's most senior politicians after he implicated President Bashar al-Assad in an assassination plot last year. The party denounced Abdel-Halim Khaddam, 73, a former vice-president and a stalwart of the Ba'ath regime, as a traitor to the "party, the homeland and the Arab nation" for his remarks. Earlier the Syrian parliament had called for him to be put on trial for high treason. Mr Khaddam, who resigned six months ago, is already in exile in Paris....

The National Leadership of the ruling Ba'ath party decided on Sunday to expel Former Vice President Abdulhalim Khaddam, considering him as a "traitor" to the party and Syria and saying he has deviated from the "party principles, values and struggle traditions." In a statement to the leadership commenting on Khaddam’s recent interview to the Arab satellite channel al-Arabiya, the national leadership depicted him as the “joiner to the chorus of those hostile to Syria,” pointing out that he is tied by that to the U.S. - Israeli scheme to hit Syria’s steadfastness. “At this time, Abdul Halim Khaddam went out...

CAIRO , December 31, 2005 (IslamOnline.net) - The bombshell dropped by former Syrian vice-president Abdel Halim Khaddam on a possible Syrian role in the assassination of Lebanese ex-premier Rafiq Hariri has sent seismic waves in Damascus and would tighten the noose around the Arab country, experts agreed on Saturday, December 31. “Khaddam’s testimony at this critical juncture in Syrian history has, in effect, sent shock waves across the country’s political landscape and ushered in grave consequences,” Syrian opposition writer Akram Al-Beni told IslamOnline.net. Speaking from Paris, where he has lived since resigning as vice-president in June, Khaddam said in...

Syrian lawmakers on Saturday accused former Vice President Abdel Halim Khaddam of treason and demanded action against him after he implicated President Bashar al-Assad's regime in the assassination of former Lebanese premier Rafiq Hariri. "I demand, in my own name and the name of the people that Khaddam is judged because he has attacked the dignity of Syria and humiliated milliions of Syrians," said MP Umeima Khudur. In an explosive interview with Dubai-based Al-Arabiya television, Khaddam said Assad had threatened Hariri just months before his February murder.

Veteran Syrian Vice President Abdel Halim Khaddam, widely regarded as the architect of his government's Lebanon policy before its troop pullout in April, announced his resignation on Friday. "I have decided to resign," he told the Dubai-based satellite television Al-Arabiya in an interview from Paris. Khaddam first asked to resign at a congress of Syria's ruling Baath party in June, but there had been no word since on whether President Bashar al-Assad had accepted the resignation. At the time, he criticised Syrian foreign policy leading up to the withdrawal from Lebanon after a 29-year deployment under international pressure over...

Russia is in negotiations to build a nuclear power plant in Syria, risking damage to its tighter relationship forged with the west in recent months and triggering fresh concerns over the spread of nuclear weapons. Moscow's ministry of atomic energy (Minatom) confirmed the discussions yesterday. It said Syria wanted the project and that Russia "in principle" could supply it, while stressing that an agreement was "not ready". The development is likely to be a fresh source of irritation to the US. Washington has long been a critic of Russia's contract to build the Bushehr nuclear power plant in Iran, which...