Syria's new parliament, created after the removal from power of Bashar Al Assad, held its inaugural session on Sunday, after the original planned opening at the start of the week was suddenly postponed.
State television showed the members of the interim legislature being sworn in before President Ahmad Al Shara. The session was briefly adjourned before the members reconvened to elect the parliament speaker.
The first session was held days after two bomb blasts in Damascus during French President Emmanuel Macron's visit to the capital on Tuesday.
One MP said the deputies were transported from hotels to the parliament hall amid tight security measures, and were kept in the dark about the timing of the session.
The formation of a new parliament is seen as a vital step in Syria's transition from decades of autocratic rule by the family of the former dictator, Bashar Al Assad. He was toppled by rebel forces led by Mr Al Shara in December 2024, after nearly 14 years of civil war.
Mr Al Shara appointed one third of the 220-member parliament earlier this month, while the rest were elected in October by 6,000 people chosen by the authorities. Most of the members are from Syria's Sunni majority.
With the opening of the new parliament, Mr Al Shara, a former radical Islamist rebel, solidifies his role as the man steering Syria towards what he described as a transformation to a pluralistic system.
The loyalist parliament was supposed to open on July 7. It was postponed to forge consensus on its speaker and other organisational issues, according to political sources. The country remains racked by instability since the fall of Mr Al Assad. The bombings in Damascus on Tuesday, in which one person was killed and 36 injured, came days after 10 people were killed in a bomb blast at a cafe near the Palace of Justice, where trials of members of the former regime are being held.
Under the transition plan adopted by the authorities in May last year, the interim parliament is supposed to approve a new constitution and a new election law, leading to general elections by 2029.
The plan was adopted two months after a government campaign in the coastal heartland of Syria's Alawite minority to subdue what the authorities described as an insurgency by loyalists of the former regime. More than 1,400 Alawites, mostly civilians, were killed in the campaign. Several dozen security personnel and pro-government militiamen were also killed.
In July last year, hundreds of Druze civilians were killed in a government campaign to subdue their heartland in the southern province of Sweida. It was mostly halted after a military intervention by Israel. Members of the area's Sunni Bedouin population were also killed.
