Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is to make a speech tomorrow on developments in his country which has been gripped by four months of anti-regime protests, the official SANA news agency reported.
‘President Bashar al-Assad will deliver a speech at noon tomorrow concerning developments in Syria,’ SANA said in a terse dispatch late today. It gave no further details.
Tomorrow's address will be the third time Mr Assad has made a major speech since protests demanding greater freedoms and democracy erupted in mid-March.
On 30 March, two weeks after the start of the demonstrations, he addressed parliament and described the deadly unrest as a ‘conspiracy’ against Syria fomented by its enemies.
And in a televised address on 16 April, Mr Assad announced that the emergency law in force in Syria for nearly 50 years would be abolished, expressed his sadness at the deaths of protesters and called for a national dialogue.
Meanwhile, Turkey has started to extend aid across its border with Syria to help people who have massed there fleeing unrest, the emergency situations agency said.
‘Distribution of humanitarian aid has begun to meet the urgent food needs of Syrian citizens waiting on the Syrian side of our border,’ the statement, posted on the agency's website, said.
It was the first time that the Turkish authorities had launched a cross-border aid mission after having sheltered more than 10,000 Syrian refugees in tent cities on Turkish territory.
Thousands of Syrians have massed on their side of the border, still undecided to cross.
Many are in the open air, while some are in makeshift shelters of branches and plastic sheets.
