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US, Syria show signs of better relationship
Military envoy, diplomat plan Damascus visits
By Glenn Kessler
The Washington Post
WASHINGTON - After fits and starts, Syria and the United States have taken steps in recent days that could lay the groundwork for a greatly improved relationship, officials from both
countries said yesterday.
Syria has agreed to let a delegation of US military commanders to visit Damascus in the coming weeks, when they will discuss joint efforts to stem the insurgency in Iraq. The Obama
administration's Middle East peace envoy, George Mitchell, is also planning a trip to Damascus this month. Mitchell, the highest-ranking US official to visit Syria in four years, will investigate whether Syria is ready to
engage in serious peace talks with Israel.
The visits were sealed in a phone call Sunday between Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Moallem, though Syria has not yet confirmed a
date for the military visit. A State Department spokesman, Robert Wood, said yesterday, "They agreed to have ongoing conversations about a full range of issues."
US officials said that the administration was
not committing to drafting a formal plan for improving relations, but the two visits could form the building blocks of a new relationship. Although officials from US Central Command have met their Syrian counterparts at
regional security meetings on Iraq, it has been years since military officials were able to have a full discussion on the situation in Iraq.
"If we can move on the Mitchell agenda and the Iraq agenda, that will have
a positive effect on the bilateral relationship," said a senior US official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly. "But there has to be action on both sides. It is not
simply that the Syrians get to sit there and wait for us."
Central Command officials did not respond to a request on who would travel to Damascus, but other US officials said the officers would not be high-ranking.
Still, Imad Moustapha, the Syrian ambassador to the United States, hailed the military visit as a potential breakthrough.
With the Obama administration, "we have a very different context," he said.
"This administration wants to address all issues. We believe this is a very strong opportunity to cooperate with this administration."
Moustapha added that it was in Syria's interest to help bring peace to Iraq
because it is currently harboring 1.5 million Iraqi refugees. "They will not leave until they think it is safe," he said.
The United States has not had an ambassador in Syria since 2005, when the Bush
administration withdrew Ambassador Margaret Scobey to protest the assassination of Rafik Hariri, a former Lebanese prime minister battling Syrian influence in that country. There are no signs that the Obama administration is
close to sending an ambassador back.
Acting Assistant Secretary of State Jeffrey Feltman has made two visits to Syria since Obama took office, but until now there was little indication of a rapprochement between the two
countries.
Indeed, Moustapha said the administration's decision last month to renew sanctions under the Syrian Accountability Act was "very problematic" and shows that it still can be "captive to Israel's
interests."
Washington Post columnist David Ignatius, who first disclosed the military visit on the Post's online feature PostPartisan late Monday, reported that Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman John
Kerry, a Massachusetts Democrat, played an important role in easing friction between the two countries after Obama renewed the sanctions.
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