Democrats trying to keep their word?
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Pelosi brings message of peace to Assad
By ZEINA KARAM Associated Press Writer
© 2007 The Associated Press
DAMASCUS, Syria — House Speaker Nancy Pelosi challenged the White House on Middle East policy Wednesday, meeting with Syria's leader and insisting "the road to Damascus is a road to peace."
That brought a sharp attack from the Bush administration, which has rejected direct talks with Damascus until its changes its ways.
"Unfortunately that road is lined with the victims of Hamas and Hezbollah, the victims of terrorists who cross from Syria into Iraq," said Gordon Johndroe, a spokesman for President Bush's National Security Council. "It's unfortunate that she took this unilateral trip which we only see as counterproductive."
Washington accuses Syria of backing Hamas and Hezbollah, two groups it deems terrorist organizations. It also says Syria is fueling Iraq's violence by allowing Sunni insurgents to operate from its territory and is destabilizing Lebanon's government. Syrian government officials have been implicated in the 2005 assassination of former Lebanese premier Rafik Hariri in Beirut.
Pelosi was the highest-ranking American politician to visit Syria since relations began to deteriorate in 2003. Then Secretary of State Colin Powell went to Damascus in May 2003.
The visit heightened tensions between the administration and congressional Democrats, who have stepped up their push for change in U.S. policy in the Mideast and the Iraq war. But Democrats — and some Republicans — say the refusal of dialogue has closed doors to possible progress in resolving Mideast crises.
Pelosi's visit coincided with Iran's announcement that it would free 15 British marines and sailors captured in the Persian Gulf last month. Syrian officials claimed their country, an ally of Iran, played a key role in resolving the standoff. But they did not offer any specific details.
"We came in friendship, hope, and determined that the road to Damascus is a road to peace," said Pelosi, who met for three hours with Syrian President Bashar Assad.
She said she expressed to Assad "our concern about Syria's connections to Hezbollah and Hamas" and militant fighters slipping across the Syrian border into Iraq.
She said that despite differences over whether to talk with Syria, "there is absolutely no division between this delegation and the president of the United States on the issues of concern."
Pelosi also said she brought a message to Assad from Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert that Israel was ready for peace talks with Syria. However, an Israeli government official later said this would only be possible if Syria abandoned terror and stopped assisting terror groups.
Syria hosts the exiled leadership of Hamas, as well as other Palestinian radical groups, and is a major patron of Hezbollah. Its government insists Hamas is a legitimate resistance movement working for Palestinian freedom and Hezbollah is a regular Lebanese political party.
Assad has repeatedly said over the past year that Damascus is willing to negotiate with Israel, insisting the talks must lead to the return of the Golan Heights, seized by Israel in the 1967 Mideast War.
"He's ready to engage in negotiations for peace with Israel," Pelosi said of the Syrian leader.
Pelosi was accompanied by a delegation of five congressional Democrats and Ohio Republican Dave Hobson. Their meeting with Assad included a lunch in Damascus' historic Old City.
Rep. Tom Lantos, the head of the House Foreign Affairs Committee who was in the delegation, said the meeting "reinforced very strongly" the potential benefits of talking to Syria.
In an interview with ABC News, Cheney said Assad has "been isolated and cut off because of his bad behavior and the unfortunate thing about the speaker's visit is it sort of breaks down that barrier."
"It means without him having done any of those things he should do in order to be acceptable, if you will, from an international standpoint, he gets a visit from a high-ranking American anyway," Cheney said.
Pelosi's spokesman Nadeam Elshami responded to Cheney by saying Pelosi pressed Assad on issues of concern.
"The administration has rejected the bipartisan recommendations of the Iraq Study Group to engage Syria and instead continues to engage in a war of words with Republicans and Democrats on this issue," he said from the Saudi capital, Riyadh, where the delegation met Wednesday evening with Saudi King Abdullah.
Last year, the Iraq Study Group — chaired by former Republican secretary of state James Baker II and former House Democrat Lee H. Hamilton — recommended Washington open talks with Iran and Syria to try to resolve the war in Iraq and other regional crises.
Bush rejected the recommendations. But in February, the U.S. joined a gathering of regional diplomats in Baghdad that included Iran and Syria for talks on Iraq.
"These people in the United States who are opposing dialogue I tell them one thing: Dialogue is ... the only method to close the gap existing between two countries," Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem told reporters after the Assad-Pelosi meeting.
Since 2005, Washington has succeeded in largely isolating Damascus, with its European and Arab allies shunning Assad. The last high-ranking U.S. official to visit Syria was then-Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage in January 2005.
Relations between the U.S. and Syria reached a low point in early 2005 when Washington withdrew its ambassador to Damascus to protest the assassination of Hariri.
But that isolation has weakened in recent months, with some European officials and a number of American lawmakers — Republicans and Democrats — visiting Damascus.
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AP correspondent Donna Abu-Nasr in Riyadh contributed to this report.
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Poetry>Byron//Blog>TheMean
| quote: | Orbax
At that point you kind of crossed the rubicon and you might as well lay siege to Rome |
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