Syrian President Bashar Assad Will Deliver A Rare Speech Sunday After UN Reports 59,648 Killed In The Civil War

Syrian President Bashar Assad will deliver a speech Sunday on the latest developments in the country and the Middle East region, according to a cryptic announcement on the official Syrian Arab News Agency online site.

Assad's address to the nation would be his first since June, the Associated Press reported. The president has generally been pretty tight-lipped throughout the Syrian Civil War that began during the so-called Arab Spring about 22 months ago.

In Assad's last widely reported remarks, he told Russia Today in November, “I am Syrian, I was made in Syria, I have to live in Syria and die in Syria.”

As a result, Assad most likely will not be announcing his resignation Sunday.

An estimated 59,648 people were killed in the Syrian Civil War between March 2011 and November 2012, according to a "Preliminary Statistical Analysis of Documentation of Killings in the Syrian Arab Republic" prepared for the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights and released Jan. 2.