Rome, Aug 6
The defection Monday of Syrian prime minister Riyad Hijab demonstrates the "progressive isolation" of President Bashar al-Assad, Italian Foreign Minister Giulio Terzi said.
The defection was evidence of Assad's increasing marginalisation that has launched the troubled country on the road to "implosion", Terzi said.
"It is a clear sign of how the violence committed towards his own country pushed his regime on the edge of an inexorable implosion," he said.
Hijab, who took the prime ministerial job in June following elections in the previous month, turned his back on Assad to join the opposition.