Syrian Envoy Rips U.S. and Israel for Rejecting Overtures From Damascus

[Purveyor]

Washington — Bemoaning what he described as an Israeli lack of vision and the Bush administration’s ideological rigidity, the Syrian ambassador to the United States strongly criticized Washington and Jerusalem last week for rejecting repeated Syrian proposals to help stabilize the Middle East.

“I must confess, we are extremely disappointed with the lack of response from the Israelis,” said the Syrian envoy, Imad Moustapha, in an interview with the Forward at the Syrian embassy in Washington. “They say they cannot talk to Syria because the U.S. fiercely opposes it…. But we believe they are using the U.S. position as a pretext and that they are quite comfortable with it.”

Several days after the interview, during a Senate appearance Tuesday, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice announced that the United States would sit next month with Syria and Iran in an Iraq-led conference. But it was not clear how far the Bush administration was prepared to go in negotiating with the two regimes, which the United States has repeatedly accused of aiding terrorist attacks in Iraq.

Several key Israeli politicians and military officials have urged greater engagement with Damascus. But Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has rebuffed their calls, prompting some commentators and insiders to assert that he was bowing to American opposition to such contacts. According to a report in Ha’aretz, Rice recently told Israeli officials to avoid even exploratory talks with Damascus.

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http://www.forward.com/articles/syrian-envoy-rips-us-and-israel-for-rejecting-over/