Syria is an Arab republic country located in western Asia. The president of Syria is Bashar Al-Assad who is the son of Hafez al Assad who has ruled the Syria for 29 years.
Bashar al-Assad became the unopposed president of Syria after the death of his father in 2000. In 2007, he was again approved to be the president for next seven years. The reign of Bashar al-Assad has been criticized for economic lapses, corruption and violation of human rights. in his foreign policy, Bashar al-assad is not in favor of USA and Israel.
On Tuesday 10th January 2012, Bashar al-Assad the Syrian president made certain claims in his speech. During his speech at Damascus, he claimed that his government is being targeted by certain foreign forces which are aimed to get him out of power and destabilize the country. He further accused that these foreign forces are being backed by west. He further emphasized his claim by stating that the opposition 10-month movement against his reign was actually funded by foreign forces.
Bashar al-Assad also expressed his opinion about failure of Arab league in defending interests of Arabs. Arab league has actually suspended the Syria and sent a team of monitors to see whether Bashar al-Assad is complying with the peace agreement he made last month or not. He said:
“Is the Arab League and are its members really independent? Has it really implemented the decisions it took?” Assad asked. “Did it pull these ideas out of a dusty drawer? Has it only realized a small part of peoples’ aspirations? Or rather, has it directly contributed to the spread of conflict and dissent?”
This speech by Bashar al-Assad was being considered as totally worthless and meaningless by Syrian opposition. According to Burhan Ghalion, head of the Syrian national council opposition group:
“The regime has not learned”
Furthermore, Rafif Joueti, a spokeswoman for local coordination committee of Syria, said about the speech:
“I heard a lot of gibberish about terrorists’ conspiracies and unnamed perpetrators.”
Overall, throughout his speech, Bashar al-Assad kept on defending the steps taken by his government, in spite of being remained under attack for 10-months. The whole protest claimed over 6000 deaths.
A senior Arab League member told the CNN that only two hours after speech of Bashar al-Assad, 11 monitors of Arab League were attacked by Pro-Assad protesters in the city of Latakia. The monitors were being assaulted and bruised.
According to secretary general of Arab league, there had been a campaign against the monitoring mission of the Arab League. The league said that government of Syrian has not fulfilled the commitment and failed in providing protection to the monitoring mission.
In answer of all the above issues, Syrian ambassador, Bashar Jaafri” said that government has nothing to do with disturbing the Arab League mission. He further said that government is also not responsible for this violence. He said that the only responsibility of government is to provide safety to the mission and the government is doing it.