Syria Aims To Resolve Kurd Issue And Pass Law On Parties
DAMASCUS, Oct 27 (AFP) -The ruling Baath party
in underfire Syria announced Thursday that measures would be taken to grant
Kurds nationality and adopt laws on the formation of political parties.
The reforms on the home front come as Syria faces mounting international
pressure over its alleged involvement in the murder of Lebanon's former premier
Rafiq Hariri.
The state news agency SANA said the decisions were taken by the Baath central
committee and in line with the party's last congress in June as well as
instructions from President Bashar al-Assad.
The congress called for a "settlement of the problem of the 1962 census
organised in Hassakeh and to work for the development of the region" in northern
Syria that is home to most of the country's 1.5 million Kurds.
Kurdish officials have long protested that 225,000 Kurds were deprived of
Syrian nationality as well as their political and civil rights by the census in
which they were not registered.
The congress also called for a law to be adopted on political parties and for
changes to Syria's election laws.
But parties would not be allowed on "ethnic, religious or regional" bases,
effectively ruling out the Kurdish minority and the Muslim Brotherhood, Syria's
two main opposition groups, delegates at the Baath congress said at the time.
