BEIRUT – Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has appointed Adel Safar, who served as agriculture minister in the government which resigned last week, to form a new government, an official Syrian source said on Sunday.
He said Safar was expected to announce his new cabinet within two days. Assad accepted the resignation of Naji al-Otari’s government on Tuesday after a wave of protests in which witnesses and activists say 60 people have been killed.
The government has little influence in Syria, where power is held by Assad, his family and the security apparatus. Safar, a member of the ruling Baath Party, was born in 1953 and has university degrees from Syria and France.
In his first comments on unprecedented protests against his rule, Assad said on Wednesday improving living conditions was a legitimate popular demand, and cited solving a water crisis that has displaced hundreds of thousands of Syrians over the past six years as a priority.
