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Assad Calls For U.S. Impartiality On Middle East
DAMASCUS, Feb 26 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Syrian President Bashar al-Assad called on the U.S. Monday to play "an active and impartial role" in the Middle East peace process during talks with U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell, the official SANA news agency reported.
A U.S. official said after the meeting that the talks also addressed the issue of sanctions against Iraq, and Iraqi oil reaching Syria by pipeline.
Assad "reiterated Syria's attachment to the peace process based the principles of the Madrid [peace] conference," held in 1991, "on the resolutions of the United Nations and on the principle of the exchange of [occupied Arab] land for peace," according to SANA.
"The president called for an active and impartial role by the United States in the peace process, saying that peace would guarantee security and stability," the agency added.
"The American secretary of state expressed his interest in the president's setting out the Syrian view of the situation and the ways to remedy it," SANA continued.
The agency said the talks, which were also attended by Syrian Foreign Minister Faruq al-Shara, were based on the peace process and on Iraq.
On the issue of Iraqi oil going via a pipeline to Syria, a senior U.S. official who declined to be named said after the talks: "It's our information that oil is going through the pipeline.
Before his arrival, it was expected that Powell intended to ask Bashar al-Assad to halt his country's imports of Iraqi oil - 100,000 barrels a day according to the U.S. - without U.N. approval, news agencies reported.
"As you know, the Syrians have said that they're testing [the pipeline].
"We have no direct evidence of quantities other than what they're selling on the markets which goes beyond what they normally sold."
A second senior U.S. official, who also declined to be named, said after Powell's talks in Damascus with President Bashar al-Assad, the two sides discussed Iraq and the Middle East peace process on both tracks, Palestinian and Syrian, and a "proposition to bring the Iraqi pipeline under U.N. auspices."
Earlier Monday, the Middle East Economic Survey (MEES) reported that Washington had asked the U.N. to change the way Iraqi crude is sold to cut down on the middlemen who have emerged since Iraq's decision to levy a surcharge.
"The United States and Britain are also trying to stop the flow of Iraqi oil to Syria, but it is doubtful if they can succeed in doing so while turning a blind eye to the cross-border trade with Turkey and Jordan," it said.
Iraq increased oil production by 500,000 barrels per day (bpd) in January as end users, mainly in the U.S. market, started snapping up most of its U.N.-authorized oil exports through small companies and traders, who pay the surcharge.
Powell left Damascus after the talks, which lasted two and a half hours and marked the end of his first trip to the Middle East, during which he also visited Egypt, Israel, the West Bank, Jordan, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, whose air bases are essential for enforcing the air exclusion zones imposed by the U.S. and Britain operating over northern and southern Iraq.
Neither Powell nor Syrian officials made statements during the visit to Damascus.
Before the talks, a senior U.S. official said that Powell wanted to focus the Damascus meeting on "means of reinvigorating sanctions against Iraq" replacing the current sanctions regime with so-called "smart sanctions", designed to target the Iraqi leadership specifically, rather than the country as a whole, and reviving the peace process in the Middle East.
But Iraq does not see smart sanctions as any better than the smart weapons used against it. Many critics of the existing sanctions say they have damaged the health and welfare of ordinary Iraqis without restraining Saddam.
International support for sanctions, however, was further eroded by the air strikes near Baghdad.
Iraq wants the sanctions - in force since the Gulf War - lifted, but the U.N. insists that arms inspectors, who left Iraq in 1998, should be allowed to return, to ensure Iraq has no weapons of mass destruction.
Talking about the difference between Bashar al-Assad and his father, former president Hafez al-Assad who died in June 2000, a senior U.S. official mentioned "a change in attitude".
"Obviously, he has the same concerns as everyone in the region", he said referring to the peace process and Iraq, but he added that Bashar was "looking outward".
Before Powell's arrival in Damascus, much criticism was levied against his present Mideast tour aimed at intensifying Washington's war against Saddam Hussein, and preventing war between Israel and its Arab neighbors.
The mouthpiece of Syria's ruling Baath party slammed Powell for focusing on Iraq at a time they were ignoring Israeli "murders" of Palestinians, saying Israel was the real danger in the region and lamenting what it said was business as usual by the United States.
"We had hoped that the secretary's tour would put an end to the crisis facing the peace process, but it seems that it is devoted only to justifying the aggression against the Iraqi people," Al-Baath said about U.S. and British air raids on Iraq earlier this month, AFP reported.
"There is no change in official American policy, and Powell, himself, has said that the Arab-Israeli conflict comes after Washington's determination to contain Iraq and Iran," the paper commented.
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