Obama Set to Appoint First Ambassador to Syria in Four Years

posted on: Jun 25, 2009

An U.S. State Department official said President Barack Obama is preparing to appoint a new ambassador to the Syrian Arab Republic after a four-year hiatus, according to Reuters. The new ambassadorship is part of Obama’s drive to improve relations between the United States and the Islamic and Arab world.

The official said the Syrian Ambassador and Foreign Ministry have been informed of Obama’s move to improve diplomatic ties with the country and “resolve a number of issues of concern to the United States.” No nominees have been selected yet.

The ambassadorship was withdrawn in 2005 after Syrian involvement was suspected in the assassination of Lebanese former Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri. Syria has denied its involvement in Rafiki’s murder, though several Lebanese and Syrian officials were initially implicated in reports. A special U.N. tribunal has been set up at the Hague in March, to investigate the Rafiki case.

The relationship between Washington and Damascus began to thaw after Obama took office, and government officials said the president is eager to cementing a peace treaty between Israel and Syria as part of a greater Middle East peace package. The two have been in an official state of war since Israel’s violent birth in 1948; a major point of contention has been the strategic Golan Heights, occupied by Israeli forces since the Six-Day War in 1967.

U.S. sanctions against Syria remain in place for the time being, however, in part due to suspicion that Syria assisted in insurgent infiltration into Iraq after Saddam Hussein was overthrown. Like most other countries in the region, Syria would be hard-pressed to demonstrate democratic credentials; the current President Bashar al-Assad took over after his father’s 30-year reign ended and the Parliament amended the constitution to allow the younger Assad to legally assume the office.

Syria has been a close ally of the Iranian regime currently under fire from protesters at home and cautioned by Obama to end violence against its citizens. Assad became president after an uncontested election in which he garnered 97% of the vote, and his Arab nationalist Baa’thists are constitutionally the leading, and only, party in the Syrian state. The state-run Syrian Arab News Agency has largely ignored the Iranian crisis, wary of giving Syrians any ideas to start lodging their own complaints against the single-party regime under Assad.

Kamil Zawadzki
Examiner.com