US President Barack Obama on Tuesday nominated career diplomat Robert Ford as the first US ambassador to Syria in five years, seeking to engage a US foe and energize his thwarted Middle East peace push.
Ford will be the first US ambassador to Damascus since Washington recalled its envoy after Lebanese prime minister Rafiq Hariri was killed in February 2005 in a bombing blamed on Syria.
“Ambassador Ford is a highly accomplished diplomat with many years of experience in the Middle East,” White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said.
“His appointment represents President Obama’s commitment to use engagement to advance US interests by improving communication with the Syrian government and people,” he said.
“If confirmed by the Senate, Ambassador Ford will engage the Syrian government on how we can enhance relations, while addressing areas of ongoing concern,” Gibbs said.
But the nomination ignited a festering row with Republicans over Obama’s signature policy of seeking to engage US foes.
Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, the top Republican on the House of Representatives Foreign Affairs committee blasted the move as “reckless engagement” and a reward for a US enemy.
“With this nomination, our foreign policy again risks sending the message that it is better to be an intractable enemy than a cooperative, loyal US ally,” she said in a statement.
“Despite the administration’s outreach, Syria continues to sponsor violent extremist groups like Hezbollah and Hamas, to undermine Lebanon’s sovereignty and to pursue unconventional weapons and missile capabilities,” she said.
The announcement came on the eve of a visit to Syria by William Burns, a top State Department official, which the administration says will further dialogue with Damascus.
Obama has seen his efforts to engage Iran and broker peace between Israel and the Palestinians founder in his first year in office, and the overture to Syria may be aimed at seeking a new way to ease the deadlock.
Analysts say it is unlikely the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, with a priority of ensuring its own survival, will be keen to sever links with Iran or make immediate concessions to Israel.
DEATH CONSTANTLY LOOMING: Decades of detention took a major toll on Iwao Hakamada’s mental health, his lawyers describing him as ‘living in a world of fantasy’ A Japanese man wrongly convicted of murder who was the world’s longest-serving death row inmate has been awarded US$1.44 million in compensation, an official said yesterday. The payout represents ￥12,500 (US$83) for each day of the more than four decades that Iwao Hakamada spent in detention, most of it on death row when each day could have been his last. It is a record for compensation of this kind, Japanese media said. The former boxer, now 89, was exonerated last year of a 1966 quadruple murder after a tireless campaign by his sister and others. The case sparked scrutiny of the justice system in
The head of Shin Bet, Israel’s domestic intelligence agency, was sacked yesterday, days after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he no longer trusts him, and fallout from a report on the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack. “The Government unanimously approved Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s proposal to end ISA Director Ronen Bar’s term of office,” a statement said. He is to leave his post when his successor is appointed by April 10 at the latest, the statement said. Netanyahu on Sunday cited an “ongoing lack of trust” as the reason for moving to dismiss Bar, who joined the agency in 1993. Bar, meant to
Indonesia’s parliament yesterday amended a law to allow members of the military to hold more government roles, despite criticisms that it would expand the armed forces’ role in civilian affairs. The revision to the armed forces law, pushed mainly by Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto’s coalition, was aimed at expanding the military’s role beyond defense in a country long influenced by its armed forces. The amendment has sparked fears of a return to the era of former Indonesian president Suharto, who ex-general Prabowo once served and who used military figures to crack down on dissent. “Now it’s the time for us to ask the
DITCH TACTICS: Kenyan officers were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch suspected to have been deliberately dug by Haitian gang members A Kenyan policeman deployed in Haiti has gone missing after violent gangs attacked a group of officers on a rescue mission, a UN-backed multinational security mission said in a statement yesterday. The Kenyan officers on Tuesday were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch “suspected to have been deliberately dug by gangs,” the statement said, adding that “specialized teams have been deployed” to search for the missing officer. Local media outlets in Haiti reported that the officer had been killed and videos of a lifeless man clothed in Kenyan uniform were shared on social media. Gang violence has left
RSS