Assad confirms freeing human rights journalist

President Bashar al-Assad of Syria ended his three-day state visit to Paris yesterday with a symbolic gesture of openness at home, and an appeal for a reassessment of Middle East peace negotiations.

Asked about the fate of the journalist Nizar Nayyouf, who was freed from prison last month, Dr Assad said: "He is no longer in prison. He has permission to leave the country if he wants to." Mr Nayyouf confirmed that he had been offered a passport so that he could travel to Europe for medical care.

Mr Nayyouf (40) served nine years of a 10-year sentence for denouncing human rights violations in Syria. He is almost blind and suffers from Hodgkin's disease and a spinal disability resulting from torture. Last week he claimed he was held for 30 hours by Syrian mokhabarat or plainclothes intelligence officers, just before he was scheduled to hold a press conference in Damascus.

The government claimed Mr Nayyouf invented the story to tarnish President Assad's visit to Paris.

Dr Assad made the announcement one day after Mr Nayyouf addressed an open letter to the French President, Mr Jacques Chirac, in which he claimed that as many as 17,000 political detainees have died of torture in Syrian prisons.

Dr Assad (35) answered questions before the French National Assembly's foreign affairs commission on Tuesday evening, something his late father Hafez al-Assad would not have dreamed of doing. The Syrian leader said he now realised the extent of the "misunderstanding" over his recent remarks, which were interpreted as anti-Semitic.

"Not once did I use the word `Jews'," he said, adding that it was difficult for the French public to understand the effect of daily violence by Israelis against Palestinians.

Ten years after the Middle East "peace process" started in Madrid, Dr Assad said, its failure proved that it was done the wrong way. Arabs blame the US and Israel for abandoning the principle of land for peace and UN Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338, which demand that Israel return occupied Arab land, as the basis of negotiations. "The reasons for the failure must be identified," Dr Assad said.

Before returning to Damascus, he said he had not meant to predict war in the Middle East. "I said that [the Israeli Prime Minister, Mr Ariel] Sharon is pushing the region towards war, and that Syria and the Arabs do not want that."

Dr Assad appeared relaxed, despite criticism throughout his visit. "You started reforms; you stopped halfway," a journalist said yesterday. "Thank you for saying we are halfway," the President laughed. "Because in my opinion we are still at the beginning."