US congressional delegation arrives in Syria

May 28, 2009, 7:52 GMT

Damascus - A delegation of US lawmakers arrived in Damascus Thursday for talks with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and other senior officials.

Senator Ted Kaufman and Congressman Tim Walz are expected to meet with al-Assad on Thursday morning, sources close to the Syrian government said.

In comments to Syrian state television last Friday night, Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem seemed to leave a door open for greater cooperation with the United States.

'Our country is looking to cooperate with the United States for the sake of the security and stability of the region,' al-Moallem said.

'If there's a realization that what the Bush administration did with regard to the Arab countries and the issues that concern them was a mistake, then this mistake should be corrected - not by words, but by deeds,' he said.

Those comments marked a shift from the indignation Syria's state press expressed after US lawmakers voted to renew sanctions on Damascus on May 7, hours after Jeffrey Feltman, US deputy assistant secretary of state for Middle Eastern affairs, visited the Syrian capital.

But while the Syrian press protested the renewal of the sanctions, it also tried to downplay the vote's significance, calling it 'routine.'

Kaufman and Walz were in Israel on Wednesday, where Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told them he hoped the Israeli and US governments could come to an agreement to 'allow normal life to continue' in Israeli settlements in the West Bank.

In remarks to representatives of the 57 member states in the Organisation of the Islamic Conference meeting in Damascus on Saturday, al-Assad said that Syria and Arab countries would prefer peace with Israel, but 'a peace based on the full return of occupied lands.'