JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on Tuesday the Obama administration would this week send two senior U.S. officials to Damascus to work on bilateral ties, in a further sign of thawing U.S.-Syria relations.
Syria, huh?
"We're going to dispatch a representative of the State Department, a representative of the White House, to explore with Syria some of these bilateral issues," Clinton said, announcing another step that could help Damascus improve its standing in the West after years of tensions.
"We have no way to predict what the future with our relations concerning Syria might be," she told a news conference with Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni.
U.S. officials said the two emissaries would be Jeffrey Feltman, a former U.S. ambassador to Lebanon and now acting assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs, and Dan Shapiro of the White House's National Security Council.
The administration of President Barack Obama has been reviewing U.S. policy toward Syria, including whether to return an ambassador to Damascus, a move the former Bush administration had been considering in the final months in office.
The move also indicates a wish to lessen Iran's influence over Syria as part of broader regional peace plans and follows up on a campaign promise by Obama to talk to U.S. enemies rather than isolate them.
Oh. Iran. That's what this is about.
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