By Rasha Saad Mar 8, 2009, 16:16 GMT
Damascus - The visit of two senior US officials to Syria over the weekend may not have been big news in Damascus, but the nervousness it produced in Beirut was perhaps the clearest sign that something important was afoot between the United States and Syria.
Speaking in Beirut on Friday, US Acting Assistant Secretary of State Jeffrey Feltman and White House aide Daniel Shapiro were quick to reassure Lebanese critics that their visit to Damascus on Saturday would not change US policy on Lebanon.
'My visit here today underscores an important reality: The United States' support for a sovereign and independent Lebanon remains unwavering,' Feltman, who previously acted as US ambassador to Lebanon, told reporters in Beirut.
This may have helped reassure those in Lebanon who might have otherwise greeted Feltman's report that his talks with Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Muallim in Damascus had been 'constructive and comprehensive' with alarm, especially following earlier visits from senior US congressional delegations.
Syria withdrew its soldiers from Lebanon in 2005, after a powerful car bomb killed former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri. The United States withdrew its ambassador to Syria after the attack, and a subsequent UN investigation accused Syrian intelligence officials of complicity in the assassination.
Neither Feltman nor Syrian officials discussed the details of what they discussed for more than three hours on Saturday, but Feltman said he was determined to work through the diplomatic differences between the two countries.
'We want to achieve results,' he said. 'I am sure the Syrians want to achieve results.'
The visit did not make headlines in Syria's monolithic state press, which has been consistently and sharply critical of the US role in the Middle East.
Syrian political analyst Marwan Qablan, told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa that the mere fact that high-level US and Syrian officials were talking directly was a positive and constructive step.
'But Damascus is only cautiously optimistic,' he said. 'While Syria expressed a strong urge to improve relations with Washington, it is looking for tangible measures from its side.'
Syria seeks the easing and eventual lifting of unilateral sanctions Washington imposed on Syria in 2004, Qablan said, and a 'genuine sponsorship' of the Israeli-Arab peace process.
Qabalan said that a shift in relations between the countries must be predicated on a shift in the American attitude towards Syria.
If officials from new US President Barack Obama's administration 'recycle the demands of the previous administration and use the same means, then Syrians will not listen. It is not logical that they should use the same approach.'
Yet the two countries have a long list of grievances. Syria remains on the US State Department's list of state sponsors of terrorism for its ties to Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Palestinian militant group Hamas. US officials remain suspicious of Syria's nuclear programme, and the US State Department routinely criticizes Syria's human-rights record.
Dispatching Feltman and Shapiro to Syria is calculated to send a double message, Andrew Tabler, a fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and former editor in chief of Syria Today magazine, told dpa.
'Dispatching Feltman sends a signal to the Syrian leadership that discussions will be about the hard issues that divide the two countries.'
On the other hand, by sending Shapiro, the Middle East chief on the National Security Council and an adviser to Obama's presidential campaign, Washington is showing Damascus that President Obama is listening, Tabler added.
Feltman is a former US ambassador to Lebanon whose support for the anti-Syrian 'March 14th' alliance, which leads the current government in Beirut, openly angered Damascus.
Tabler said that while Damascus' position on such groups as Hamas and Hezbollah are 'a tough sell' in Washington, 'Syria's economy is being hit hard by the global economic crisis, declining oil production and a third straight year of drought that has left the government there in a vulnerable position.'
This, he said, may explain why more and more Syrian officials are now demanding that Washington lift its sanctions on their country - which, in turn, might provide an opening for further negotiations.
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drought?Mar 10th, 2009 - 14:37:41
Sounds like they have incured the wrath of God. Stinking terrorists !!
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