Syria (Arabic: سوريا ‎ Sūriyā or سورية Sūriyah), officially the Syrian Arab Republic (Arabic: الجمهورية العربية السورية ), is a country in Southwest Asia, bordering Lebanon, the Mediterranean Sea and the island of Cyprus to the west, Israel to the southwest, Jordan to the south, Iraq to the east, and Turkey to the north. The modern state of Syria was formerly a French mandate and attained independence in 1946, but can trace its roots to the fourth millennium BC. Its capital city, Damascus, was the seat of the Umayyad Empire and a provincial capital of the Mamluk Empire.

Syria gained independence in April 1946. Officially a Republic, Syria has been under Emergency Law since 1963 and governed by the Baath Party; the head of state since 1970 has been a member of the Assad family. Syria's current president is Bashar al-Assad, son of Hafez al-Assad, who held office from 1970 until his death in 2000.^[2][3] With the appointment of Bashar al-Assad in 2000 interest in political reform surged, leading to the so called "Damascus Spring" (July 2000-February 2001). Assad appointed pro-reform candidates to formal and less formal positions, but the 2001 arrest and long-term detention of the two reformist parliamentarians signals slow political reform.