SYRIA: Vice-president Abdel Halim Khaddam, Syria's number two political figure, has declared his intention to resign from the government and the ruling Baath party.
Sources attending its 10th congress in Damascus reported yesterday that Mr Khaddam (73) said he intended to stand down at a closed session of the political committee.
This followed his criticism of the policy which led to Syria's withdrawal from Lebanon in April after 29 years of military and political involvement in the country.
Mr Khaddam, also the most senior figure in the party's anti-reform old guard, gave no reason for his decision. He has been gradually sidelined by President Bashar Assad, who is seeking economic liberalisation and political change in the centrally-controlled Baathist socialist system installed 35 years ago.
In a newspaper interview published in 2004, Mr Khaddam warned that change would threaten the "stability of the state" and "serve the agendas of foreign elements and of Israel".
A close confidant of the late president Hafez Assad, the military man who ruled Syria with an iron hand for three decades, Mr Khaddam served as foreign minister and deputy prime minister before becoming vice-president in 1984.
He assumed the presidency briefly after Mr Assad died in June 2000. The ninth party congress was guided by Mr Khaddam to name Dr Bashar Assad, an opthalmologist, his father's successor.
As architect of the policy in Lebanon following Syria's military intervention in the country's civil conflict in 1976, Mr Khaddam became a close friend of a number of Lebanese politicians, including former premier Rafik Hariri, who was assassinated on February 14th.
In spite of the fact that Damascus was blamed either indirectly or directly for the murder by many Lebanese and the international community, Mr Khaddam attended Mr Hariri's funeral in a personal capacity. He was the only Syrian official to do so.
It is reported that Mr Khaddam will be replaced by foreign minister Farouk Sharaa (67), a party veteran who is seen as being closer to the president on domestic affairs but a hardliner on Lebanon and Israel and US involvement in Syria's affairs.
Abdullah Ahmar, the party's second in command, is also likely to step down to permit the congress to form a new party leadership more in tune with the president's internal reform policies.
