With official and mass participation Syria lays its martyrs to rest

President Bashar Assad on Saturday received a delegation of the Felicity Party, header by its leader Mustafa Kamalak.

Kamalak underlined that the Turkish people stand by the Syrian counterpart to face what they are exposed to, rejecting any foreign intervention in Syria's domestic affairs and hoping relations between Syria and Turkey are back to normal, particularly after the great achievements fulfilled by the two states on the levels of bilateral ties and issues of the region.

President Assad stressed the deep-rooted relations between the Syrian and Turkish peoples, and that no one could affect them due to the geographic, historic and fraternal ties that connect them.

Members of the delegation said that would convey the full image about what is happening in Syria as they saw, and will work to help Syria overcome this crisis as what harm Syria would affect the regional countries.    

Crowds waving Syrian flags and pictures of President Bashar Assad gathered on Saturday to bury 26 people who the authorities said were killed by a suicide bomber at a busy Damascus crossroads.  

A cortege of ambulances, lights flashing, bore the flag-draped coffins of victims to a Damascus mosque after driving through streets lined with mourners, state television showed.    

Crowds chanted "The people want Bashar Assad!" and "One, one, one, the Syrian people are one!”    

The interior minister has vowed “iron fist" in response to Friday's carnage in the heart of the capital of Damascus.                

State television showed pictures of coffins laid out inside a mosque before chanting mourners carried the coffins onto the streets as part of the funeral procession.                

The blast, which also wounded 63 people, occurred before an Arab League committee meets in Cairo on Sunday to discuss the future of an Arab monitoring mission that has spent two weeks checking whether Syria is keeping its pledge to halt a 10-month crackdown on opponents of four decades of Assad family rule.      

Despite the Qatari leader's criticism, Arab League sources said Arab foreign ministers were likely to reaffirm support for the monitors, resisting calls to end what Assad's foes say is a toothless mission that only buys time for him to repress them.