Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has appointed Adel Safar, who served as agriculture minister in the cabinet which resigned last week, to form a new government, an official Syrian source said.

He said Safar was expected to announce his new cabinet within two days. Assad accepted the resignation of Naji al-Otari's government after a wave of protests in which witnesses and activists say 60 people have been killed.

The government has little influence in Syria, where power is held by Assad, his family and the security apparatus.

Safar, a member of the ruling Baath Party, was born in 1953 and has university degrees from Syria and France.

In his first comments on unprecedented protests against his rule, Assad said improving living conditions was a legitimate popular demand, and cited solving a water crisis that has displaced hundreds of thousands of Syrians over the past six years as a priority.

Assad dismissed the broader concerns about repression and growing demands for political freedoms in the country that has been ruled by the Baath PArty since 1963.

Safar was dean of the college of agriculture at Damascus University between 1997 and 2000, before being appointed to the important political position of secretary of the Baath Party branch at the university, haaretz.com reported.