Syrian opposition: Assad's inauguration speech 'abysmal'

Syria's main opposition alliance, the National Coalition, criticised President Bashar al-Assad for laying emphasis on “national dialogue” and "consensus” during his inauguration speech on Wednesday.

“To talk about national consensus under the shadow of war planes and tanks was an abysmal move that would fail to convince people,” Nasr al-Hariri, secretary-general of the National Coalition for Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces, said Wednesday.

At his inauguration for a new term as Syria’s president on Wednesday, Assad delivered a defiant speech in which he said his government had sought national reconciliation and dialogue since the onset of the civil war in 2011.

“With millions of Syrians having been displaced at home and abroad, Assad’s speech, which is a product of an illegitimate election, means nothing for the Syrian people,” coalition member Ahmad Cakal said in a written statement.

On 4 June, Assad was declared the winner of a disputed presidential election with 88.7 percent of the vote.

Opponents of the Assad’s government dismissed the poll - held only in government-controlled areas - as a “farce,” with US Secretary of State John Kerry calling it "a great big zero.”

Cakal also criticised the fact that Assad’s inauguration ceremony was held at the Presidential Palace instead of the parliament.

“Swearing-in ceremonies are held in national assemblies in democratic countries which respect their citizens. Assad, however, staged an unprecedented farce and drove his deputies to his palace’s granary," he said.

Assad had strong words in his speech for his opponents labelling them as “terrorists” and told them to “drop their weapons because we won’t stop fighting terrorism and striking it wherever it exists in Syria.”

On the same day of his swearing-in ceremony, the official Syrian news agency SANA reported that five mortar shells had been fired by rebel forces and had killed four people in Damascus, two of which struck the central area of Umayyad Square.

Syria has been gripped in an ongoing civil war since 2011 in which between 100,000 and 160,000 people have been killed and close to half of the 22 million population displaced, according to the UN.

But the official number cannot be verified as the UN has stopped updating its death toll for the country due to what it said were difficulties in verifying casualties.