Hardliner Shara was promoted to the post of vice-president in charge of foreign affairs and information in a government reshuffle announced on Saturday and replaced as foreign minister by Walid Muallem, a reputed moderate.
"It's a balancing exercise," a Western diplomat said, as the veteran Shara was moved upstairs after more than two decades of running the ministry.
He stressed that it was unclear who would have "the upper hand" in foreign policy at a time when Syria faces Western pressure for its alleged implication in the February 2005 assassination of former Lebanese premier Rafiq Hariri.
Muallem, 65, is a canny negotiator who served as ambassador to the United States between 1990 and 2000. He was a member of Syria's delegation to peace talks with Israel and was named deputy foreign minister in January 2005.
The main feature of the reshuffle, in which 12 new ministers were named, was Shara's promotion and "a strengthening of the hard line" in Syrian politics, according to Syrian dissident Michel Kilo.
He predicted that the new line-up would put the brakes on political reforms and remain at loggerheads with Washington. "The current policies of Syria will continue," said Kilo.
An American expert on Syria, Joshua Landis, said that it remained to be seen how the foreign ministry would be re-arranged.
"It would surprise me, however, if Shara is being kicked upstairs to get him out of the foreign ministry," he wrote on his Internet weblog, noting that he was a key figure in dealing with a UN probe into the Hariri killing.
"So long as the investigation continues," Shara would be kept on "to spearhead the resistance", he said.
"But he may make some re-arrangements in the foreign ministry to beef up his 'good cop' forces," he wrote. "From the beginning, Assad has deployed a dual policy of 'resistance' and 'cooperation'. He will keep both avenues open."
Shara's new posting comes almost four months after the UN probe accused him of trying to mislead the investigation.
At a congress of the ruling Baath party last June, former vice-president Abdel Halim Khaddam as he resigned accused Shara of having led Syrian policy on Lebanon to a dead end.
Shara replaced Khaddam, who was branded a traitor after accusing the regime over the murder of Hariri, killed in a Beirut car bombing a year ago.
Military police chief Bassam Abdel Majid was named interior minister to replace Ghazi Kanaan, the one-time intelligence chief in Lebanon who officials said committed suicide in October.
Among other key appointments, Sufian Allaw was named oil and resources minister, Fuad Issa Joni became industry minister and Mohsen Bilal, Syria's ambassador to Spain, was given the information ministry post.
Syria's UN envoy Faisal Mekdad was named deputy foreign minister.
© 2006 Agence France-Presse
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