Syria VP appears ending defection rumours

26 Aug 2012, 9:41 pm   -   Source: AAP

Syrian Vice President Farouk Al-Sharaa has made his first public appearance in several weeks, ending rumours that he defected.

Syrian Vice President Farouk Al-Sharaa has made his first public appearance in several weeks, ending rumours that he defected.

Sharaa was last seen in public at a state funeral for top security officials who were killed in a bomb blast on July 18.

On Sunday, reporters saw Sharaa exit his car and walk to his office for a meeting with Alaeddin Boroujerdi, head of Iran's powerful parliamentary committee on national security and foreign policy.

An Associated Press reporter at the scene said Sharaa looked serious and steered away from reporters covering the meeting. He did not make a statement.

Speculation has swirled since last week over the fate of Sharaa, the highest-ranking Sunni Muslim official in President Bashar al-Assad's minority Alawite-led regime, since the opposition claimed he had tried to defect.

Assad's regime has been rattled by several high-profile defections as the Syrian conflict has escalated, including former prime minister Riad Hijab and prominent General Manaf Tlass, one of Assad's childhood friends.

Syria's state news agency SANA said on Saturday that a fake email had been sent out in its name claiming that the vice president had been sacked, adding that the "information is completely wrong."

After the opposition claims, state television on August 19 quoted a statement from Sharaa's office saying: "Mr Sharaa has never thought about leaving the country or going anywhere."

A former minister, who defected this year, also said earlier this month that it was "well-known" that Sharaa had tried to leave the country and was under house arrest.

Syria was also forced to deny that Foreign Minister Walid Muallem had announced on Twitter he had replaced Sharaa, with SANA saying this month that the information was "wrong" and that Muallem did not have a Twitter account.

Sharaa, 73, has served in senior posts for almost 30 years under both Assad and his father and predecessor Hafez al-Assad.

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