Syria’s leader sent a July 4 message full of praise to US President Barack Obama on Friday and invited him to visit Syria — the latest signs Damascus is hedging its bets in Middle East politics, warming up to its rival the US at a time when its longtime ally Iran is in turmoil.
The US and its Arab allies have been hoping to pull Syria out of the fold of Iran and Islamic militant groups in the region.
Damascus so far appears unlikely to take such a dramatic step, but it does appear worried about Iran’s reliability and the long-term impact of that country’s post-election unrest. Also, its Lebanese ally Hezbollah suffered a setback when its coalition failed to win parliament elections last month, beaten out by a pro-US bloc.
Syrian President Bashir Assad has been expressing hopes for better ties with Washington for months. But the latest developments may make dialogue look even more attractive.
Assad sent a telegram to Obama on the occasion of the July 4 Independence Day holiday, saying, “The values that were adopted by President Obama during his election campaign and after he was elected president are values that the world needs today.”
“It is very important to adopt the principle of dialogue in relations with countries based on respect and mutual interest,” Assad said in the telegram, which was carried by state-run news agency SANA.
In an interview with Britain’s Sky News, Assad invited Obama to visit Damascus to discuss Middle East peace.
“We would like to welcome him in Syria, definitely. I am very clear about this,” Assad said in English.
Asked whether such a visit could take place soon, Assad said: “That depends on him.”
He said with a smile: “I will ask you to convey the invitation to him.”
The last time a US president visited Syria was a 1994 trip by Bill Clinton.
For the US, even pulling Syria only partly away from Iran and its militant allies would represent a major shift and could help ease Middle East crises. The US-Syrian rivalry has fueled instability in Lebanon, and the US and Israel say Syria’s backing of the Palestinian Hamas undermines the Arab-Israeli peace process. Syrian cooperation could make Obama’s fresh push for a peace deal take off.
The Obama administration has stepped up its wooing of Syria. The US is sending back its ambassador to Damascus after a four-year break over terrorism accusations. Obama’s special Middle East peace envoy, George Mitchell, became the highest-level US administration official to visit Damascus since 2005, and he acknowledged Syria’s clout, declaring Damascus has a key role to play in forging Middle East peace.
In a separate interview with Sky News, Assad’s wife, Asma, said she believed the Syrian and US leaders could work together.
“The fact that President Obama is young — well President Assad is also very young as well — so maybe it is time for these young new leaders to make a difference in the world,” she said.
In one sign of Syrian cooperation on regional issues, Damascus is believed to have played a behind-the-scenes role in ensuring Lebanon’s elections remained peaceful.
AFGHAN CHILD: A court battle is ongoing over if the toddler can stay with Joshua Mast and his wife, who wanted ‘life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness’ for her Major Joshua Mast, a US Marine whose adoption of an Afghan war orphan has spurred a years-long legal battle, is to remain on active duty after a three-member panel of Marines on Tuesday found that while he acted in a way unbecoming of an officer to bring home the baby girl, it did not warrant his separation from the military. Lawyers for the Marine Corps argued that Mast abused his position, disregarded orders of his superiors, mishandled classified information and improperly used a government computer in his fight over the child who was found orphaned on the battlefield in rural Afghanistan
EYEING THE US ELECTION: Analysts say that Pyongyang would likely leverage its enlarged nuclear arsenal for concessions after a new US administration is inaugurated North Korean leader Kim Jong-un warned again that he could use nuclear weapons in potential conflicts with South Korea and the US, as he accused them of provoking North Korea and raising animosities on the Korean Peninsula, state media reported yesterday. Kim has issued threats to use nuclear weapons pre-emptively numerous times, but his latest warning came as experts said that North Korea could ramp up hostilities ahead of next month’s US presidential election. In a Monday speech at a university named after him, the Kim Jong-un National Defense University, he said that North Korea “will without hesitation use all its attack
US Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris is in “excellent health” and fit for the presidency, according to a medical report published by the White House on Saturday as she challenged her rival, former US president Donald Trump, to publish his own health records. “Vice President Harris remains in excellent health,” her physician Joshua Simmons said in the report, adding that she “possesses the physical and mental resiliency required to successfully execute the duties of the presidency.” Speaking to reporters ahead of a trip to North Carolina, Harris called Trump’s unwillingness to publish his records “a further example
Millions of dollars have poured into bets on who will win the US presidential election after a last-minute court ruling opened up gambling on the vote, upping the stakes on a too-close-to-call race between US Vice President Kamala Harris and former US president Donald Trump that has already put voters on edge. Contracts for a Harris victory were trading between 48 and 50 percent in favor of the Democrat on Friday on Interactive Brokers, a firm that has taken advantage of a legal opening created earlier this month in the country’s long running regulatory battle over election markets. With just a month
RSS