Resignation
As the new President strengthened his grip on the Baathist bureaucracy, Khaddam, and other members of the "old guard" of the government, gradually lost influence. He announced his resignation on 5 June 2005 during the Ba'th Party Conference and went to France with his family. That made him one of the last influential members of the "old guard" to leave the top tier of the government. The announcement came at a point when his political wings had already been clipped, but still the most powerful Sunni member in an Alawi Shi'ite government. After resigning, he relocated to Paris ostensibly to write his memoirs.
In an interview with Al Arabiya on 30 December 2005, Khaddam denounced Assad's many "political blunders" in dealing with Lebanon. He especially attacked Rustum Ghazali, former head of Syrian operations in Lebanon, but defended his predecessor late Ghazi Kanaan - Syria's Interior Minister. Khaddam also said that former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq al-Hariri, to whom Khaddam was considered close, "received many threats" from Syria's President Bashar al-Assad.
Read more about this topic: Abdul Halim Khaddam
Famous quotes containing the word resignation:
“Resignation, not mystic, not detached, but resignation open- eyed, conscious, and informed by love, is the only one of our feelings for which it is impossible to become a sham.”
—Joseph Conrad (1857–1924)
“How could a man be satisfied with a decision between such alternatives and under such circumstances? No more than he can be satisfied with his hat, which he’s chosen from among such shapes as the resources of the age offer him, wearing it at best with a resignation which is chiefly supported by comparison.”
—George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian)