Assad Sees Need to Sync Reforms with Peace

Syria's President Bashar al-Assad said on Friday that reforms have to be synchronized with a return to peace in the unrest-swept country, state media reported.

Assad, in remarks to visiting Mauritanian Prime Minister Moulaye Ould Mohamed Laghdaf, said that reforms and a "return to peace" must be concurrent in Syria, according to the official SANA news agency.

The president, whose regime is facing an Arab Spring-inspired uprising that began with pro-democracy protests 11 months ago, added that "Syria has been targeted in various ways to create chaos."

"The political reforms carried out by the state must move in parallel with efforts to restore security and stability and protect civilians," he said, quoted by SANA.

Assad this week called a February 26 referendum on a draft constitution that could end nearly five decades of rule for his Baath Party. Opposition groups promptly rejected the new charter and urged voters to boycott the poll.

Laghdaf flew to Damascus on Thursday with a message for Assad, amid renewed Arab efforts to end the bloodshed in Syria, his country's official news agency AMI said, without elaborating on the content of the message.

A diplomatic source in Nouakchott said, however, that Mauritania was seeking to convince Assad of "the need to cooperate with the Arab League in order to avert an internationalization of the crisis in Syria."

Mauritania is one of the Arab League states which had sent observers to Syria in a failed mission to bring an end to the repression of pro-democracy protests that has left at least 6,000 people dead since March 2011.