January 15, 2006	Sunday	Zilhaj 14, 1426

BERLIN, Jan 14: Syria’s former vice president Abdel Halim Khaddam said he was preparing a government in exile as he is convinced that Syrian President Bashar al Assad will be forced to step down this year, the German weekly der Spiegel reported on Saturday.

“I would not exclude any political group as long as it respects the democratic process,” Mr Khaddam said in an interview with der Spiegel.

Mr Khaddam, 73, who has been living in exile in Paris since he resigned from his office in June, has been a vocal critic of President Assad, who succeeded his late father Hafiz al Assad to the presidency.

Syria has been ruled by the Assad family ‘like a band of gangsters’, Mr Khaddam told the German weekly.

He also repeated the opinion he has given in other interviews that Mr Assad had a role in ordering the assassination last year of Lebanon’s former prime minister Rafik Hariri, whose killing is under investigation by the United Nations.

“The fall (of the Assad regime) has begun. I do not think the regime will survive this year,” he said.

About a government in exile, Mr Khaddam said he was open to including Islamist groups and members of the Baathist party, even though he was expelled from the party’s ranks at the beginning of this year. —AFP