Syria’s Reconciliation Minister: Turkish Role in Syria 'Very Bad'
In an exclusive interview with Al-Monitor from his office in Damascus, Ali Haidar, Syria's minister of national reconciliation, said that President Assad’s Jan. 6 speech constitutes "a step forward toward solving the crisis” and that Turkey's “role is based upon a sectarian position, and they are supporting some of the Syrian people at the expense of others.”
In an exclusive interview with Al-Monitor from his office in Damascus, Syria, Ali Haidar, Syria's minister of national reconciliation and leader of the Syrian Social Nationalist Party, said that President Bashar Assad’s recent speech consisted of “preliminary ideas” about a transitional phase in Syria and should not be discounted.
“We personally think that this is the first time that the president has put forward a set of ideas which constitute a step forward toward solving the crisis,” Haidar said, adding that “the relationship between Assad's proposal, the Geneva Initiative and Lakhdar Brahimi's statement was a set of principles to resolve the crisis.”
Haidar, who is an Ismaili originally from Hama, explained that Assad’s proposals lay out a process leading to a referendum on a new constitution.
“This is when the role of this current government will come to an end,” Haidar said, “paving the way for a new government that will be the product of subsequent elections and the national dialogue.”
