Syrian President Bashar Assad Will Deliver A Rare Speech Sunday After UN Reports 59,648 Killed In The Civil War

By J.J. McGrath | January 05 2013 7:09 PM

Syrian President Bashar Assad will deliver a speech Sunday on the latest developments in the country and the Middle East region, according to a cryptic announcement on the official Syrian Arab News Agency online site.

REUTERS/Raed Al-Fares/Shaam News Network/Handout

Demonstrators hold a banner during a protest against Syria's President Bashar Assad after Friday prayers in Kafranbel, outside Idlib.

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Assad's address to the nation would be his first since June, the Associated Press reported. The president has generally been pretty tight-lipped throughout the Syrian Civil War that began during the so-called Arab Spring about 22 months ago.

In Assad's last widely reported remarks, he told Russia Today in November, “I am Syrian, I was made in Syria, I have to live in Syria and die in Syria.”

As a result, Assad most likely will not be announcing his resignation Sunday.

An estimated 59,648 people were killed in the Syrian Civil War between March 2011 and November 2012, according to a "Preliminary Statistical Analysis of Documentation of Killings in the Syrian Arab Republic" prepared for the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights and released Jan. 2.