Lebanon 's House Speaker Nabih Berri praised Wednesday's speech by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad as laying the foundation of a "modern Syria", DPA reported.
Assad, in his first speech since the protests started against his regime in Damascus, blamed what he described "as conspirators" for the deadly unrest in Syria.
Berri stressed that Syria's stability is an Arab need, and particularly a Lebanese one.
"Late president Hafez al-Assad laid the foundations for Syria the invincible, while ... Bashar al-Assad lays the foundation of a modern Syria ... the country of civil rights," Berri - who is a close ally of the Lebanese Shiite movement - Hezbollah said in a statement.