Defiant president speaks

Addressing the country from Damascus University as his regime continues to battle a three-month long challenge to its rule, Assad said that there could be "no development without stability, no reform in the face of sabotage and chaos" and that Syria was now at a "turning point."

Assad also suggested that external forces and a small group of “saboteurs” were responsible for the unrest.

The president also attempted to make a distinction between the street protestors who have been calling for greater freedoms and democracy and those fighting his troops in the north-west of the country, separating them into "martyrs" and those "who have legitimate demands," and those who are trying "to exploit the kind majority of the Syrian people to carry out their many schemes."

Assad appeared to allude to external meddling in the crisis, suggesting that those he called "saboteurs" had been inspired and helped by others.

"I don't think there has been a single day when Syria has not been the target of plotting whether that be for geopolitical reasons or because of its political positions," he said.

He vowed to "solve the problem with our own hands," a veiled warning to those in the international community who may be considering a Libyan-style intervention and those external forces who might have an agenda hinged on destabilizing Syria.

National dialogue

Assad suggested that an amnesty which was granted for those opposed to the regime to encourage them to give up their arms and their struggle would be extended once he had consulted Syria's Justice Ministry.

The president also said that he would be inviting "more than a hundred personalities" to discuss possible "criteria and mechanisms" for a national dialogue in which all different parties on the Syrian arena would participate in the hope that a solution to the crisis could be found.

"A schedule will be specified that says the time for dialogue will be a month or two, depending what the participants decide in the consultative meeting," he said. "This dialogue is a very important issue which we have to give a chance because all of Syria's future, if we want it to be successful, has to be dependent on this dialogue."

Assad said that the national dialogue would open the way for the completion of Syria's Parties law and the Elections law, seen as the most important legislation in the country's slow march toward political reform.

He also called on Syrians to work together to restore confidence in the country's economy, claiming that "the most dangerous thing we face in the next stage is the weakness or collapse of the Syrian economy."

Describing the country's economic problems as "psychological," the president said that Syria could not allow depression and fear to defeat it. "We have to defeat the problem by returning to normal life," he said.

EU sanctions

As Assad addressed the Syrian people, EU foreign ministers were watching intently at their meeting in Luxembourg where a discussion on expanding sanctions against the al-Assad regime was high on the agenda.

A full vote on whether the EU would expand its current sanctions to include Syrian companies and an additional dozen people on a blacklist of 23 people targeted by an asset freeze and travel ban could be taken at the EU summit later this week.

A draft resolution expected to be put before the EU at the summit states that the EU is "actively" preparing to "expand its restrictive measures by additional designations" and that Assad's "credibility and leadership depends on the reforms he himself promised."

"The international community has given Assad maybe his last chance. I hope he takes it," Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini told reporters as he arrived in Luxembourg. "Many of us are losing their hope in the possibility of the president turning completely to the reform path."

British Foreign Secretary William Hague said that Assad must either implement reforms or step aside and that he hoped Turkey would "be very clear and very bold" in taking the lead in convincing the Syrian regime that it was losing legitimacy.

As Luxembourg's foreign minister Jean Asselborn warned of a potential civil war in Syria, his German counterpart Guido Westerwelle called for a united international approach in response to the "images of inhumanity" and "cruelty" coming out of Syria, singling out the Russian opposition to a resolution in the United Nations Security Council as a barrier to consensus.

Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt added that a failure to come to such a consensus at the Security Council would be seen as "indirect tolerance of what is going on in Syria."

Author: Nick Amies (dpa, AFP, Reuters)
Editor: Rob Mudge