Getty Images ~ Syrian President Bashar al-Assad (L) welcomes US envoy George Mitchell at the presidential palace in Damascus on June 13, 2009. Mitchell, the highest ranking official to visit Syria since President Barack Obama took office in January....
The Guardian (UK)
The US is to send an ambassador to Damascus for the first time in four years as part of a push towards a peace deal between Israel and Syria.
The state department told Syria's ambassador to Washington, Imad Mustafa, of the plan yesterday, officials said. The US plans to make an announcement within days.
With little sign of talks with Iran or of progress on an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal, Syria offers Obama a chance of making some diplomatic progress in the region. In recent years Israel and Syria, who never signed a peace deal after the 1967 war, have been exploring a settlement....
Washington withdrew its ambassador from Syria in 2005 in protest over the alleged role of Bashar Assad's intelligence service in the assassination of the Lebanese leader Rafiq Hariri.