Damascus - A delegation of US lawmakers arrived in Damascus
Thursday for talks with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and other
senior officials.
Senator Ted Kaufman and Congressman Tim Walz are expected to meet
with al-Assad on Thursday morning, sources close to the Syrian
government said.
In comments to Syrian state television last Friday night, Syrian
Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem seemed to leave a door open for
greater cooperation with the United States.
'Our country is looking to cooperate with the United States for
the sake of the security and stability of the region,' al-Moallem
said.
'If there's a realization that what the Bush administration did
with regard to the Arab countries and the issues that concern them
was a mistake, then this mistake should be corrected - not by words,
but by deeds,' he said.
Those comments marked a shift from the indignation Syria's state
press expressed after US lawmakers voted to renew sanctions on
Damascus on May 7, hours after Jeffrey Feltman, US deputy assistant
secretary of state for Middle Eastern affairs, visited the Syrian
capital.
But while the Syrian press protested the renewal of the sanctions,
it also tried to downplay the vote's significance, calling it
'routine.'
Kaufman and Walz were in Israel on Wednesday, where Israeli Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told them he hoped the Israeli and US
governments could come to an agreement to 'allow normal life to
continue' in Israeli settlements in the West Bank.
In remarks to representatives of the 57 member states in the
Organisation of the Islamic Conference meeting in Damascus on
Saturday, al-Assad said that Syria and Arab countries would prefer
peace with Israel, but 'a peace based on the full return of occupied
lands.'
USA
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