The Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, was due focus on the domestic reform process in Syria in a speech to Arab lawyers.

The address comes just days after the release of five prominent opposition figures and was to be delivered at the opening of a legal conference in Damascus.

On Wednesday, five opposition figures including MPs Riad Seif and Maamun Homsi were released. Their arrests in 2001 brought had signalled the end of a short-lived "Damascus Spring" of reforms and free speech.

Syria has come under sustained international pressure for internal reform following the 14 February murder of former Lebanese prime minister Rafiq Hariri, which was widely blamed on Damascus.

Assad has vehemently denied responsibility for the Hariri murder and a string of other political assassinations in Lebanon over the past year.

PHOTO CAPTION

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad (R) and his Iranian counterpart Mahmoud Ahmadinejad give a joint press conference in Damascus. (AFP)