Clinton encourages Israel and Syria contacts
2009-03-07

Category Hezbollah Nations Syria Israel Palestine City Damascus Category Regions Regions Asia Middle East People Barack Obama George W. Bush Hillary Clinton Source (Reuters)

ANKARA (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Saturday encouraged peace contacts between Israel and Syria and two senior U.S. officials made a rare visit to Syria in a sign of warming ties between Washington and Damascus.

Clinton, on a stopover in Ankara, praised Turkey for mediating in the indirect talks between Israel and Syria and said U.S. President Barack Obama would visit NATO-member Turkey next month, his first trip as president to the Muslim world.

Speaking at a news conference, Clinton said Washington had not yet made a decision on whether to reassign a new ambassador to Damascus. It withdrew its envoy in 2005 after the assassination of former Lebanese prime minister, Rafik al-Hariri.

But praising Turkey's mediation role between Syria and Israel, Clinton said: "The importance of this track, the peace effort, cannot be overstated."

Syria formally suspended the Turkish-mediated indirect talks last year during the Israeli invasion off Gaza, but Syrian officials have not ruled out their resumption, even if a right wing government is formed in Israel.

Turkish Foreign Minister Ali Babacan told the joint news conference that Ankara was ready to relaunch mediation efforts if both sides requested it.

Relations between Syria and the United States nosedived under the George W. Bush administration after Hariri's assassination.

Tensions have lingered over Damascus's support for the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas and the Lebanese Hezbollah movement, accusations that Syria allowed Islamist fighters to infiltrate Iraq and suspicions about a secret nuclear program -- which Damascus also denies.

But President Barack Obama has been reviewing U.S. policy toward Syria and a sign that ties could be warming came with a visit by two senior U.S. officials to Damascus on Saturday.

Jeffrey Feltman, acting assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern Affairs, and Dan Shapiro of the White House's National Security Council were the first senior U.S. officials to visit Syria since January 2005.

"I would characterize the discussions as very constructive. We discussed a broad range of regional issues and the bilateral relationship," Feltman told reporters after meeting Foreign Minister Walid al-Moualem.

The two men did not meet Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Feltman later told a conference call that a lot of common ground had been established in his and Shapiro's talks on Saturday with Syrian officials.

But he added: "The differences between our two countries will require more work than simply two conversations like this ... Let's not expect that things are going to change dramatically from today until tomorrow."

Feltman said the two countries would be "looking at what opportunities for engagement there may be in coming weeks" based on the outcome of Saturday's meeting, a hint that higher level U.S.-Syrian contacts may be under consideration.

(Additional reporting by Arshad Mohammed in Washington; Writing by Richard Balmforth; Editing by Giles Elgood)