Syria Holds Peace as Strategic Option: Acting PresidentSyrian Acting President Abdel Halim Khaddam said on Monday his country sticks to the Middle East peace process as a strategic option as long as there are proper conditions for achieving such an option.Syria's position on establishing a fair and comprehensive peace in the region is firm if Israel responds positively to Syria's fundamentals defined by the late President Hafez al-Assad, Khaddam said at the ongoing Ninth National Congress of the ruling Arab Socialist Baath Party (ASBP), which opened Saturday. "Syria is for fair and comprehensive peace based on the U.N. Security Council resolutions and the land-for-peace principle that ensures Israel withdraw to the border lines of June 4, 1967," he said. On the domestic situation in Syria, he pointed out the necessity of practising the freedom of expression in a high sense of responsibility. The new national leadership to be elected by the ASBP national congress will face various tasks, said Khaddam, Syria's first vice president who served as the acting president after Assad's death on June 12. Atop the tasks are consolidation of the party bases and and enhancement of its leading role as the country is in need of change, development and modernization to cope with the developments of the world today, he added. It is necessary to work out an all-round economic reform program that ensures the prosperity of the country, strikes balance among the social categories, enhances the role of the public and private sectors, opens the door wider for foreign investments, and develops the banking activities, he underlined. The acting president urged for supporting Bashar al-Assad and his coming leadership. The ASBP national congress, to be concluded on Tuesday, has elected Bashar, Assad's second son, new leader of the party. Bashar has pledged on various occasions that he will continue the policy of his father on the peace process. U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright said after attending the funeral of Assad last Tuesday that she "sensed encouraging signs" in Bashar's remarks on his father's policy toward the regional peace process. |
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