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Syria’s Reconciliation Minister: Turkish Role in Syria 'Very Bad'

In an exclusive interview with Al-Monitor from his office in Damascus, Ali Haidar, Syria's minister of national reconciliation, said that President Assad’s Jan. 6 speech constitutes "a step forward toward solving the crisis” and that Turkey's “role is based upon a sectarian position, and they are supporting some of the Syrian people at the expense of others.”
Syria's Minister for National Reconciliation Ali Haidar speaks during a news conference in Moscow, August 21, 2012. The Syrian government said on Tuesday foreign military intervention in Syria was "impossible" because it would lead to a conflict beyond the country's borders. REUTERS/Maxim Shemetov (RUSSIA - Tags: POLITICS HEADSHOT)
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In an exclusive interview with Al-Monitor from his office in Damascus, Syria, Ali Haidar, Syria's minister of national reconciliation and leader of the Syrian Social Nationalist Party, said that President Bashar Assad’s recent speech consisted of “preliminary ideas” about a transitional phase in Syria and should not be discounted.

“We personally think that this is the first time that the president has put forward a set of ideas which constitute a step forward toward solving the crisis,” Haidar said, adding that “the relationship between Assad's proposal, the Geneva Initiative and Lakhdar Brahimi's statement was a set of principles to resolve the crisis.” 

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