Damascus: Syrian Vice-President Farouk Al Shara’s made his first public appearance in over a month on Sunday, an AFP journalist said, following rumours that he had tried to defect.

Al Shara’a, who met the visiting head of the Iranian parliament’s foreign policy committee, Aladin Borujerdi, was last seen in public at a state funeral for top security officials who were killed in a bomb blast on July 18.

Speculation has swirled since last week over the fate of Shara, the highest-ranking Sunni official in President Bashar Al Assad’s minority Alawite-led regime, since the opposition claimed he had tried to defect.

Al Assad’s regime has been rattled by several high-profile defections as the Syrian conflict has escalated, including former prime minister Riad Hijab and prominent General Manaf Tlass, one of Al Assad’s childhood friends.

Syria’s state news agency Sana said on Saturday that a fake email had been sent out in its name claiming that the vice-president had been sacked, adding that the “information is completely wrong.”

After the opposition claims, state television on August 19 quoted a statement from Shara’s office saying that “Mr Shara’a has never thought about leaving the country or going anywhere.”

A former minister who defected this year also said earlier this month that it was “well-known” that Shara’a had tried to leave the country and was under house arrest.

Syria was also forced to deny that Foreign Minister Walid Mua’alem had announced on Twitter he had replaced Shara’a, with Sana saying this month that the information was “wrong” and that Mua’alem did not have a Twitter account.

Shara’a, 73, has served in senior posts for almost 30 years under both Al Assad and his father and predecessor Hafez Al Assad.

Talks only after purge

Mua’alem, meanwhile, said Syria’s regime will only look at negotiating with the opposition after “purging” rebels from the country.

“The plan for negotiations between the Syrian government and opposition will begin after purging Syria of armed groups,” Mua’alem was quoted as saying after meeting Borujerdi, in Damascus.

“The condition for any political negotiation... is the halt to violence by armed groups and a declaration of opposition to foreign military intervention in Syria,” Mua’alem said.

Borujerdi, whose government is Damascus’s staunchest ally, was quoted by Irna as saying: “We see Syria’s security as our security. On this basis, we will stick by our Syrian brothers.”