Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa has announced a transitional government, appointing 23 ministers in a new broadened and diverse cabinet.

The cabinet announced on Saturday included Yarub Badr, an Alawite who was named transport minister, while Amgad Badr, who belongs to the Druze community, will lead the agriculture ministry.

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“The formation of a new government today is a declaration of our joint will to build a new state,” al-Sharaa said in a speech marking the formation of the government.

The government will not have a prime minister, with al-Sharaa expected to lead the executive branch.

Al Jazeera’s Resul Sardar, reporting from Beirut, Lebanon, said al-Sharaa was “trying to show Syrians and the world the new government is reflecting the diversity of Syria”.

“People had criticised the president that he had previously appointed all of his close friends to all of the ministerial positions [in the caretaker cabinet],” he added.

Syria’s new rulers have been under pressure from the West and Arab countries to form a government that is more inclusive of the country’s diverse ethnic and religious communities.

That pressure increased following the killings of hundreds of Alawite civilians – the minority sect from which ousted ex-President Bashar al-Assad hails – in violence along Syria’s western coast this month.

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Veteran opposition figure Hind Kabawat, a member of Syria’s Christian minority and longtime al-Assad opponent, was named social affairs and labour minister, the first woman to be appointed by al-Sharaa.

Mohammed Yosr Bernieh was named the finance minister, while Murhaf Abu Qasra and Asaad al-Shibani, who were serving as defence and foreign ministers respectively in the previous caretaker cabinet, were also retained.

The caretaker cabinet under al-Sharaa has governed Syria since al-Assad was toppled in December by a lightning rebel offensive. In January, al-Sharaa was named interim president, and he pledged to form an inclusive transitional government that would build up Syria’s gutted public institutions and run the country until elections, which he said could take up to five years to hold.

Al-Sharaa said he has established, for the first time, a ministry for emergency situations and disasters, with the leader of the White Helmets, the Syrian rescuers who worked in rebel-held areas, Raed al-Saleh, appointed to lead it.

Earlier this month, Syria issued a constitutional declaration, designed to serve as the foundation for the interim period led by al-Sharaa.