Bashar al-Assad orders forming new Syrian government

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has issued a decree forming a new government, the state television says.

The Syrian president issued Decree 210 on Saturday, forming a new government under the newly appointed Prime Minister Riad Farid Hijab, the television said.

Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Muallem as well as Defense Minister Dawoud Rajiha and Interior Minister Mohammad al-Sha’ar will remain in their posts.

On June 6, President Assad appointed former Agriculture Minister Riad Farid Hijab as the Syrian premier.

The presidential decree also ordered the formation of a number of new Syrian ministries, including internal trade and consumer protection, foreign economy and trade, and housing and construction development.

The latest decree was issued a day after armed groups in Syria killed 25 civilians in the northern province of Aleppo.

Syria has been experiencing unrest since March 2011 because the presence of the U.S, Zionist Israel and their regional allies-backed and financed terrorists who are killing the civilians and officials.

The anti-Damascus Western governments have been calling for the overthrow of President Assad over the past few weeks.

However, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on June 21 that a “scheme according to which President Assad should leave somewhere before something happens in terms of a cessation of violence and a political process… does not work simply from the very start.”

Also on June 21, the New York Times published a report quoting some US and Arab intelligence officials as saying that a group of “CIA officers are operating secretly in southern Turkey” and that the agents are helping the anti-Syria governments decide which gangs inside the Arab country will “receive arms to fight the Syrian government.”

The report added that Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar pay for the transport of the weaponry into Syria.

On June 12, the Syrian Foreign Ministry said in a statement, “The US administration is pushing forth with its flagrant interference in Syria’s internal affairs and its backing of armed terrorist groups.”

The statement also condemned Washington for “distorting the truth and what is happening on the ground while encouraging armed terrorist groups to carry out more massacres… throughout the country.”