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Syrian regime is near collapse, says ex-vice president

Syria's former vice-president said in comments published yesterday that the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, which he is trying to topple, will collapse this year.

"The current regime will fall because of the blunders it has committed both in domestic and and international politics," Dubai's Gulf News daily quoted Abdul Halim Khaddam as saying in an exclusive telephone interview from his self-imposed exile in the Belgian capital Brussels.

"It will definitely happen in 2006," Khaddam told the English-language paper, without saying why he was certain the regime would be ousted so soon.

Khaddam, who helped formulate Syria's foreign policy for nearly three decades, also criticized the late president Hafez Assad, saying he should never have allowed his son to succeed him.

Alleging massive corruption inside the ruling family in Syria, Khaddam said that "currently, there is no way to correct the regime from inside the nation. Bashar is acting like someone who has a farm and wants to manage it on his own. He would not listen to any idea other than those praising him."

Khaddam, 74, broke away from Assad late last year, following growing international pressure over the killing of former Lebanese premier Rafik Hariri last year, which the UN has blamed on Syria.
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