BEIRUT: A bloodless, pre-dawn military coup today [Feb 23] toppled the Baathist Government of President Amin Al-Hafez and Premier Salaheddin Bitar, according to a Damascus Radio broadcast heard here. The broadcast announcement clamped down a curfew until further notice and closed all the borders between Syria and the outside world.

M. Bitar was arrested, so were Gen Amin Al-Hafez, Head of the Presidential Council, M. Michel Aflaq, who co-founded the Baath Party with M. Bitar, and Defence Minister Maj-General Mohammad Omran.

The Radio said a provisional national leadership of the Baath Party had taken over the Government.

The names of only two Army Officers of the new ruling junta have so far been announced by Damascus Radio, which is now the only means of knowing what is going on in Syria. These are Maj-Gen Hafez Assad who becomes Minister of Defence and Col Ahmad Sweidan who has been promoted to Major-General and appointed Chief of Staff of the Army.

Both belonged to the former Baathist National Leadership for Syria, which the party’s international leadership dissolved last year.

The Radio said the arrested leaders would face trial by a special high party tribunal for their alleged betrayal of the principles of the 1963 revolution which bought the Baathists to power.

[Meanwhile, as reported by agencies from Rawalpindi,] India continues to violate the Tashkent Declaration with impunity. In the Lok Sabha according to a message from New Delhi, a spokesman of the Foreign Affairs Ministry, Mr Dinesh Singh, said on Monday [Feb 21] that India sympathised with what he called “legitimate aspiration” of the Pakhtoons living in north-western Pakistan and would do everything possible constitutionally to support them. Mr Singh was answering questions by Opposition deputies.

It may be mentioned that India and Pakistan had pledged at Tashkent that both countries will not interfere in each other’s internal affairs.

Published in Dawn, February 24th, 2016