US and Syrian diplomats met here Thursday in a bid to improve strained ties between their countries although Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said prospects for a warming are not yet clear.
Syria's ambassador to the United States, Imad Moustapha, met for nearly two hours with Jeffrey Feltman, the State Department's top diplomat for the Middle East at the request of the US to discuss ways to repair damage to the relationship and possibly work together. The meeting was the first high-level US-Syrian session since September.
After the discussion, Moustapha told reporters that his talks with Feltman had been "very constructive" and that he expected the meeting would be the first of many between US and Syrian officials in the coming months.
"We believe that this meeting has explored possibilities between Syria and the United States to engage on a diplomatic and political level and also to discuss all issues of mutual concern," he said. "We think this is a first step and we believe there will be many further meetings."
Earlier, Clinton, who was not expected to participate in the talks, described the meeting as routine but added it was too early to tell whether ties would improve. She stressed that the Obama administration was committed to engagement in the Middle East and promoting Arab-Israeli peace.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
