Syrian President Bashar al-Assad told visiting US members of Congress on Saturday that the US should “move away from a policy based on dictating decisions.”
Assad’s guests on Saturday included US Senator John Kerry, who headed the third delegation this week to call on the Syrian president’s door as Washington reviews its policies toward countries the previous administration regarded as hostile.
Assad told his visitors that future relations should be based on a “proper understanding” by Washington of regional issues and on common interests, SANA news agency reported.
“Dialogue, based on the history of the region and the rights of its peoples, is the only way to understand and resolve problems,” he said.
Kerry, who lost the 2004 presidential election to former US president George W. Bush and now chairs the Senate’s powerful Foreign Relations Committee, met Assad on the same day as Howard Berman, the chairman of the House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee, SANA said.
Both legislators underlined “Syria’s active role” in the region and the importance of “developing dialogue between Damascus and Washington,” SANA said.
US Senator Benjamin Cardin headed another group that visited Assad on Wednesday.
Earlier in his Middle East tour, Kerry had highlighted Syria’s support for Iran and regional Islamist militant groups, including the Shiite Hezbollah movement in Lebanon.
“We want Syria to respect the political independence of Lebanon, we want Syria to help in the process of resolving issues with Hezbollah and with the Palestinians,” he said in Lebanon on Wednesday.
“We want Syria to help ... with the disarmament of Hezbollah,” added Kerry, the most senior US official to visit Damascus since House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in 2007.
Syria dominated Lebanon for three decades until April 2005 when it pulled out its troops in the face of domestic and international pressure following the assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri.
Damascus has denied accusations it was behind the murder
Hezbollah, which is also backed by US arch-foe Iran and viewed in Washington as a terrorist organization, fought a devastating war with Israel in 2006.
Kerry said in Lebanon that US President Barack Obama’s administration plans to adopt a fresh approach in the Middle East “but without any illusion.”
“Unlike the Bush administration that believed you could simply tell people what to do and walk away and wait for them to do it, we believe you have to engage in a discussion,” he said.
“So we are going to renew diplomacy but without any illusion, without any naivety, without any misplaced belief that, just by talking, things will automatically happen,” he said.
The Bush administration repeatedly accused Damascus of turning a blind eye to the arming and funding of insurgents in Iraq and of supporting terrorism.
The US withdrew its ambassador from Syria after the February 2005 assassination of Hariri in a car bombing widely blamed on Syria. Damascus has denied any involvement.
Assad returned to the international fold last year with a visit to Paris, and since then relations with the world community have thawed.
The US diplomatic flurry was overshadowed by the International Atomic Energy Agency’s (IAEA) announcement on Thursday that it has found unexplained uranium particles at a remote desert site in Syria.
Syria insists the uranium found at Al-Kibar came from Israeli missiles that blasted the site in September 2007.
“It’s nuclear material that hasn’t been declared and Syria has to explain,” a senior IAEA official said.
On Friday Washington said it would summon the Syrian ambassador “to discuss our concerns,” US State Department spokesman Gordon Duguid said.
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese