Symbols and Flags of the State in Syria (15) Khaled al-Azm

• He was born on November 6, 1903 in Saroja market in Damascus.
• Five members of the family were governors of Damascus during the Ottoman era, the most famous of whom was Asad Pasha, who ruled for 14 years. During his tenure, Al-Azm Palace and Khan Asad Pasha were built, as well as other improvements to the city’s structure.
• His father, Muhammad Fawzi al-Azm, presided over the municipality of Damascus and accomplished many projects, such as the National Hospital, dredging the waters of Ain al-Fijehah, and contributing to the construction of the Hejaz Railway. He was also appointed Minister of Religious Affairs.
• He received his primary education from private tutors between Damascus and Istanbul after his father was appointed minister of religious affairs.
• After his family returned from Istanbul, he studied at the commercial school, and then studied law and law at Damascus University, from which he graduated in 1923.
• He inherited his father’s early political career and became a minister in the Damascus federal government during the Syrian Federation.
• Throughout this period, he managed his family’s rich feudal properties across the country and kept himself at arm’s length from politicians close to the French Mandate on Syria.
• He had a good relationship with Hashim al-Atassi and Shukri al-Qutli, but in politics he was closer to Hashim al-Atassi, with whom he opposed the project of unity with Egypt.
• During his ministry, he founded the Damascus Chamber of Industry in 1935, and he had previously founded the government cement factory in 1930.
• After the declaration of the First Republic in 1932, he became a member of parliament from Damascus.
• He was assigned to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in the government of Nasuhi al-Bukhari in 1939.
• Although he was a capitalist, his fiscal policies also supported balanced development and equity for the poorest of the poor.
• He inaugurated the alliance between Syria and the Soviet Union and developed a special friendship with Maronite Patriarch Boulos Boutros al-Maouchi.
• After the dismissal of Bahij al-Khatib in 1941, in an attempt by the French during World War II to woo the national political forces in Syria, he was entrusted with the acting presidency of the Syrian state, combining the positions of head of state and prime minister.
• He formed his first ministry, which was tasked with preparing for the return of constitutional life to the country.
• He issued a general amnesty for all political prisoners imprisoned by Vichy France.
• He saved the country from the consequences of Rashid Ali al-Kilani’s coup in Iraq, but France pursued a policy of procrastination and procrastination.
• France replaced him five months later with former President Taj al-Din al-Hassani.
• He was elected as a member of parliament in 1943 and re-elected several times.
• In the first independence government in 1946, he became Minister of Justice, and one of his first decisions was to abolish “foreign privileges in the country.”
• He led the opposition to Shukri al-Qutli when he wanted to amend the constitution to allow him to run for a second term, but al-Qutli was able to amend the constitution and win the 1947 presidential elections against al-Azm.
• He accepted the position of Syrian ambassador to France, but his tenure did not last long, as he was soon asked by al-Qutali to form a government, which was his second government, but it was not supported by the major blocs and fell apart ten days after its formation.
• He returned as ambassador to France and succeeded in concluding an arms deal with France, and later concluded another arms deal with the Soviet Union.
• In terms of monetary reform, the al-Azm government issued a series of decisions and legislation aimed at canceling the Syrian Bank’s right to issue money and restricting this right to the Syrian state alone, through a purely Syrian institution called the Syrian Monetary Issuance Corporation (SMIC).
• Al-Azm’s monetary revolution raised the value of the Syrian pound to more than 405 milligrams of gold.
• The Palestine Nakba led to a series of unrest and riots in various Syrian cities, after which Jamil Mardam Bey’s government resigned and he was tasked with forming a new government.
• His government has failed to make any progress in stemming public anger over the defeat.
• Some politicians called on former President Hashim Atassi to form a crisis management government.
• Al-Qutli assigned Khaled Al-Azm to form the government, but he apologized for accepting the assignment, which was directed to Prince Adel Arslan, Minister of Social Affairs, but he failed, so President Al-Qutli reassigned Al-Azm, who accepted this time and succeeded on December 16, 1948, in forming his third coalition government.
• The government was granted a vote of confidence with 73 votes out of the 108 MPs who attended the session.
• The third al-Azm government faced many issues related to the importance of arming the army, stopping the riots, stopping the collapse of the Syrian pound, and its commitment to the “liberation of Palestine” as stated in its ministerial statement.
• The Syrian press welcomed this formation, especially after the government’s success in stabilizing the pound and stopping the riots. On foreign policy, al-Azm said that the world is now divided into two blocs and that Syria cannot remain neutral and must choose between the US bloc or the Soviet bloc.
• During this period, the government approved the draft financial agreement with France and began studying the Tapline pipeline project.
• These steps led the government to be criticized by the People’s Party, the Muslim Brotherhood, and the Arab Socialist Baath for the country’s dependence on the United States.
• In Damascus, Homs, Aleppo and several other areas, mass demonstrations against the Tapline Agreement, which has been described as costly and unhelpful to the Syrian economy, prompted the government to remove it from circulation and postpone its approval.
• Among the achievements of the Al-Azm government were the conclusion of a deal to purchase French weapons, the approval of the 1949 armistice agreement with Israel, the ratification of the Syrian Monetary Agreement, the establishment of the National Chamber of Agriculture, the construction of grain silos from the eastern region, and a national textile factory to produce low-priced national clothing after their prices rose in the Syrian market.
• On March 6, Interior Minister Adel al-Azmah resigned over the temporary closure of schools and the withdrawal of the license of an opposition newspaper, to be replaced by Mohsen al-Barazi.
• The House of Representatives invited him to a discussion session on the army, but he refused, arguing that the army should be kept out of the realm of political tensions.
• The People’s Assembly held its session without the presence of the government, and during the session, the army and its leadership were harshly criticized, forming the basis for Hosni al-Za’im’s subsequent coup.
• Four months after forming his third government, on March 30, 1949, the army, led by Hosni al-Za’im, overthrew the constitutional government and arrested the president and prime minister and placed them in Mezzeh Military Hospital.
• On the same day, al-Qutli resigned from the presidency and al-Azim from the prime ministership after Fares al-Khoury visited them in prison.
• The resignation was published on April 6, and al-Azm was later released.
• After al-Zaim was deposed in August 1949 in another coup led by Sami al-Hanawi, restoring constitutional rule, three months later, al-Azm was appointed Minister of Finance in the crisis management government formed by Hashim al-Atassi on August 15, 1949.
• One of the first tasks of the crisis management government, in which al-Azm participated as finance minister, was to prepare elections for a Constituent Assembly to draft a new constitution for the country.
• He ran as an independent for the city of Damascus and won again.
• After the assembly, Hashim al-Atassi was elected president of the republic, which had previously been administered by the army command. After his election, Atassi tasked al-Azm with forming a government.
• Al-Azm accepted the task of forming a government but was unable to do so and apologized the next day.
• Atassi assigned Nazem al-Qudsi, head of the People’s Party, to form the formation, but he apologized the next day after the army and its leadership interfered in the distribution of names and positions.
• Atassi wanted to resign, but he backed down under pressure from the army and assigned al-Azm again, who succeeded on December 29, 1949, in forming a government that was satisfactory to both the army and the People’s Party.
• This was a very delicate stage in Syrian politics. After Hosni al-Zaim was ousted and constitutional rule was restored, the army turned against itself and arrested Sami al-Hanawi, and Adib al-Shishakli became the commander of the army and interfered in the smallest details of Syrian political life, which was rejected by most political parties and led to instability in the country.
• On January 4, 1950, Al-Azm’s government submitted for a vote of confidence, and in its ministerial statement it made no reference to unity with Iraq or general “Arab unity”.
• The government was criticized by the People’s Party and the Republican Bloc, but it received a vote of confidence by 92 votes to 7, with 33 deputies absent from the session.
• The fourth Al-Azm government was also short-lived, as it lasted six months and resigned on June 4, 1950.
• Al-Azm’s government was accused of not being neutral, opposing the People’s Party, the largest bloc in the parliament, and putting Syria in the Saudi-Egyptian axis as opposed to the Hashemite Iraqi-Jordanian axis.
• Al-Azm was able to avoid this issue and said he accepted support from any country.
• He had a role in the discussions on the new constitution so that Syria would be as far away as possible from Arab axes and economic ideologies in particular.
• On April 26, Defense Minister Akram Hourani resigned after disagreements with a number of ministers, weakening al-Azm’s government because Hourani is the dean of the Republican Bloc, which enjoys the army’s absolute support.
• Al-Azm left for Egypt to attend the Arab League summit and moved from there to Riyadh. On May 24, a new dispute broke out in the government, and as a result of this dispute, al-Azm’s government resigned on May 28, 1950.
• Atassi asked al-Azm to form a new government, but he declined. The position was given to Nazem al-Qudsi, the leader of the anti-military People’s Party, the first opportunity for the largest parliamentary bloc to form a government despite the army’s reluctance.
• He stayed out of power for less than a year. On March 27, 1951, Al-Azm formed his fifth government after eighteen days of formation consultations due to the intensification of the dispute between the army, the presidency, and the parliament.
• This was Al-Azm’s fifth government and like the previous one, it was during the first coup of Adib Shishakli, i.e. a civilian government with a military background, before Shishakli’s second coup, in which he took over the reins of power directly.
• This government lasted only five months and consisted of seven members, all of whom were independents except for one representative of the army in the defense ministries and one representative of the Arab Socialists.
• The government won confidence by a vote of 52-0, with 4 abstentions and the rest absent.
• During the discussion of the government’s statement, Israel bombed sites near Lake Houla, precipitating a vote of no confidence in the government.
• Under pressure, the al-Azm government promoted Adib al-Shishakli to the highest military ranks and appointed him commander-in-chief of the army and armed forces.
• The government also approved a new deal to arm the army worth $1.4 million.
• During the government’s work, al-Azm closed the border to Lebanese goods in an attempt to prevent the collapse of local industry as a result of rampant Lebanese imports, thereby announcing the end of economic unity with Lebanon.
• He announced the establishment of the Latakia port, introduced economic reforms to the Syrian pound, and announced a project to build railroads between the eastern regions on the Euphrates River and Latakia to facilitate imports and exports.
• The opposition, led by the People’s Party, nominated Marouf al-Dawalibi to head the House of Representatives while the government put forward another candidate close to al-Azm, and after two rounds of voting, al-Dawalibi won, a setback for the government.
• What effectively killed the government was the parliament’s refusal to ratify an extraordinary spending expansion to arm the military.
• President Atassi gave Al-Azm the option of resigning or presenting a financial project acceptable to the House of Representatives, and as no formula could be reached, Al-Azm resigned on July 31, 1951.
• Just four months after the government’s resignation, Adib al-Shishakli overturned the constitutional rule, appointing Fawzi al-Sallu as head of state with executive and legislative powers, suspending the constitution, dissolving the parliament and parties, and forcing President al-Atassi to resign.
• During the four-month period, three successive governments headed by Hassan al-Hakim, Zaki al-Tayeb and Ma’ruf al-Dawalibi were formed, showing the instability in which the republic lived as a result of the army’s interference in politics.
• After the coup, most political leaders, including al-Azm, retired from politics.
• After the Shishakli regime was stabilized, al-Azm was asked to form a civilian government, but he refused, citing health reasons.
• He boycotted the 1953 legislative elections, where the political boycott continued until February 26, 1954, when Shishakli stepped down from power.
• He participated in the 1954 legislative elections, which returned him back to parliament and headed the “Democratic Bloc” consisting of 37 independent deputies, which was the largest bloc of the parliament.
• Atassi tasked him with forming a government after the elections, but he failed after two days of negotiations with the People’s Party on one side and the Baath on the other.
• He and his bloc supported the government formed at the time by Fares al-Khoury. The Democratic Bloc was characterized at the time as a right-wing, pro-Western bloc in the face of leftist, pro-Eastern blocs.
• Al-Azm returned to the executive authority again on February 13, 1955, as Minister of Foreign Affairs and a partner in the government in the ministry formed by Said Al-Ghazi ahead of the presidential elections, which brought him closer to the leftist forces in the country.
• On the other hand, he and his bloc supported the government formed at the time by Fares al-Khoury. The Democratic Bloc was characterized at the time as a right-wing, pro-Western bloc in the face of leftist, pro-Eastern blocs.
• The government of Fares al-Khoury resigned in February 1955 after the parliament – with a majority of independent deputies with Baathists and Communists – rejected the draft budget presented by the government.
• A new government was formed, headed by Sabri al-Asali, in which al-Azm was minister of foreign affairs and acting minister of defense.
• The government became independent only after the 1955 presidential elections, which led to the victory of Shukri al-Qutli as president in the second round of voting, and his only rival was Khaled al-Azm.
• Al-Azm returned to the executive authority again on February 13, 1955, as Minister of Foreign Affairs and a partner in the government in the ministry formed by Said Al-Ghazi ahead of the presidential elections, which brought him closer to the leftist forces in the country.
• Al-Azm briefly retired after his loss, then returned again in November 1956 to enter the government of Sabri al-Asali as Minister of Defense, during a coalition government of the Baath Party, the National Bloc, and the “Democratic Bloc,” which included a number of independent MPs.
• He played a key role in achieving the alliance with the Soviet Union, traveling repeatedly to arrange loans, economic agreements, and arms deals, much to the chagrin of the United States.
• The socialists distrusted him because of his rich aristocratic and Ottoman background, although he was not an absolute capitalist and sometimes allied himself with the Soviet Union, so he was nicknamed the “Red Millionaire.”
• The Syrian press adopted this nickname for al-Azam during the 1950s. Because he was not a socialist.
• He unsuccessfully opposed the unification with Egypt in 1958 that led to the declaration of the United Arab Republic, stating that Nasser would destroy Syria’s democratic system and free market economy.
• He retired from politics during the Federation and emigrated to Lebanon.
• When a military coup led by Abdulkarim al-Nahlawi and 35 officers broke off relations with Egypt, al-Azm returned to Syria.
• He helped draft the secession document himself and tried to run for the presidency, but the military rejected his candidacy.
• Nazim al-Qudsi was elected president, and al-Azm returned to parliament as a representative from Damascus.
• On March 28, 1962, another coup toppled the regime, and al-Qudsi and al-Azam were imprisoned.
• On April 2, a counter-coup released them, and al-Azm became prime minister again under al-Qudsi.
• The two men allied with former President Shukri al-Qutli to rid the army of the Nasserists and reverse the nationalization project put in place by Gamal Abdel Nasser when he was president of the United Arab Republic.
• Before this could be realized, the Arab Socialist Baath Party (ASBP) overthrew the March 8 Revolution, and both al-Azm and al-Qudsi moved to Lebanon.
• Khaled al-Azm’s final move was to Beirut, where he lived in difficult financial circumstances, as his property in the country was seized by the Baath Party.
• In 1964, he began publishing his political memoirs in Al-Nahar newspaper, which was proofread by Khalil Klass, and the publication process continued until after his death
• He died in Beirut and was buried there on November 18, 1965.
• It was in his will that he be buried near Imam al-Ouzai in Beirut and not carried to Damascus so that the city and his supporters would not be disturbed and shot back and killed and wounded.
• According to Khair al-Din al-Zarkali’s Al-Alam, his wife sold his diary after his death, and it is said that it was distorted and altered, and some of it was published sequentially in the newspaper Al-Nahar, and then published in full in a book.
• His character was featured in the series Hammam al-Qayshani, which chronicled the political life in Syria from the era of the Syrian Kingdom until the Baath Revolution and the establishment of the Second Republic.
• His character has been described as one of the most enigmatic and ambiguous figures in contemporary Syrian history.

We at Syrian Future Movement, as we recall the memory of the founding statesmen of Syria, we recall one of Syria’s influential men, and one of the symbols of the flags of the first Syrian state that contributed to influencing its structure, the national leader “Khaled al-Azm” within a sequential file that we present to you to include the symbols and flags of the Syrian state, in order to link our contemporary revolutionary present with a solid past and historical stations, hoping to revive in our people the need to build We hope to revive in our people the need to build and create statesmen par excellence, learn from their experiences, overcome their negatives, build on their history, preserve the homeland, safeguard the gains, and restore the Syrian state to its glory after years of oppression, tyranny, and corruption.