Syria bypassed worst part of crisis for citizens' awareness: president

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said Wednesday Syria has bypassed the worst part of current crisis due to its citizens' awareness, the official SANA news agency reported. Assad made the remarks during his meeting with a delegation from the Syrian Social Nationalist Party in Lebanon, stressing that Syria "would benefit from what has happened to develop the society and become a model in the region." For its side, the delegation said that Syria would succeed in facing all attempts that target its "national path and state of stability," according to SANA. Earlier in the day, hundreds of thousands of al-Assad's supporters thronged a main square in Damascus to support their leader and express gratitude for China and Russia, who vetoed a UN Security Council draft resolution that would have condemned Syria for its alleged crackdowns on opposition protesters. Syria has been wracked by six-month-old unrest it blames on foreign conspiracy and foreign thugs because of Damascus' support for anti-Israeli groups such as Lebanon's Hezbollah and the Palestinian Hamas. Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem has recently put the number of army officers and law-enforcement troops killed since the eruption of protests in Syria in mid March at 1,110, while a recent UN tally put the number of civilians and security forces who were killed during the crisis at nearly 2,900.