US asks Syria to move away from Iran: Clinton

AFP, Washington, Feb 24, 2010  – Washington is urging Syria to move away from ally Iran as well as stop arming Hezbollah, cooperate in Iraq and resume peace talks with Israel, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Wednesday.
In disclosing US demands for engagement with Syria, Clinton was blunter than ever about Washington’s bid to drive a wedge between Damascus and Tehran, the target of a US drive
Clinton’s remarks during a Senate budget debate come as Syria announced that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahamdinejad will visit Damascus on Thursday for talks with Syrian counterpart Bashar al-Assad.
The chief US diplomat told a Senate committee that William Burns, the undersecretary for political affairs and third-ranking US diplomat, ’had very intense, substantive talks in Damascus’ when he visited there last week.
’And we’ve laid out for the Syrians the need for greater cooperation with respect to Iraq, the end to interference in Lebanon and the… provision of weapons to Hezbollah, a resumption of the Israeli-Syrian track…,’ she said.
Clinton said Washington also is asking Syria to ’generally to begin to move away from the relationship with Iran, which is so deeply troubling to the region as well as to the United States.’
The United States accuses Syria and Iran of supporting militant groups in the region, including the Lebanese political and guerrilla movement Hezbollah as well as the Palestinian radical group Hamas.
It also accuses Syria of turning a blind eye to militants crossing its border into Iraq.
Clinton also said she would study a senator’s proposal to consider ways to invite Syrian leader Assad and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to the White House in a bid to break the stalemate in talks between the two nations.
’I certainly will look at anything that might break the stalemate. I’m not sure that would be acceptable or do-able to all the parties involved,’ Clinton told the senator Arlen Specter.
She repeated that the goal is to restart the formerly Turkish-brokered talks that Syria suspended after Israel launched a brief war in the Gaza Strip in December 2008.
Obama last week announced that Robert Ford will be the first US ambassador to Damascus since Washington recalled its envoy after Lebanon’s former prime minister Rafiq Hariri was killed in February 2005 in a bombing blamed on Syria.
The move is part of the Obama administration’s year-long campaign to engage a former US foe and energize its thwarted push for a broad Arab-Israeli peace, particularly between Israel and the Palestinians.
Analysts says engagement is more likely to produce modest benefits — like better intelligence cooperation and an improved climate for peace — than peel Syria away from a strategic ally like Iran or achieve a peace breakthrough.