PARIS - Former Syrian Vice President Abdul Halim Khaddam said Saturday he was seeking a national alliance to overthrow the regime of President Bashar Assad.

In an interview with United Press International in Paris, Khaddam said he was seeking an alliance that would bring down Assad's regime and to punish the "security figures who involved him (Assad) negatively with the Syrian people."

The former official, who was a leader in the ruling Baath Party and country's leadership for 30 years until recently, said he was not seeking any personal gains and had no personal ambitions in his country.

He insisted he wanted a new government that would unleash public freedoms and revoke the emergency laws, as well as introducing a political parties law "without any restrictions."

Khaddam said such measures would allow Syria to "organize itself and to assume its role in the Arab arena."

Denying he was in contact with French or American officials, Khaddam praised French President Jacques Chirac's policy towards Syria and Lebanon as "correct," and accused the deteriorating relations between Paris and Damascus on President Assad and his aides.

He refused to discuss his Friday testimony to the U.N. commission investigating former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri's assassination, who was killed in a massive explosion in Beirut last February.

In an interview with al-Arabiya news channel late last month, he said Assad had treated Hariri harshly and instigated against him.

Khaddam, who was in charge of Syrian policy in Lebanon until Bashar Assad came to power in 2000, added that relations between Syria and Lebanon will likely remain tense until the international probe concludes its investigation.

Many Lebanese forces blame the murder of Hariri on the Syrian regime, which withdrew its forces from Lebanon in April after 29 years. (UPI)