(RTTNews) – The United States Thursday said growing closeness between Syria and Iran witnessed during Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s visit to Syria was undermining Damascus’ position in the Middle East.
State Department spokesman P J Crowley told reporters that America’s concerns on the matter were conveyed to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
He said although it was for Syria to take a decision on ties with Iran, it would not be difficult for the Syrian leadership to realise that the country was increasingly getting isolated in the Arab world.
“The US wants to see Syria play a more constructive role in the region, and one step would be to make clear what Iran needs to do differently. And, unfortunately, there was no evidence of that today,” Crowley said.
Iran and Syria had signed a visa agreement on Thursday further cementing their close bilateral ties.
Later at a joint news conference with Assad, Ahmedinejad blasted the U.S. saying that the era of Washington dictating terms to other countries was a thing of the past and also lashed out at Israel declaring that “the Zionist entity is heading for disappearance.”
Assad meanwhile countered U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s recent remarks to the Congress about a “slight opening” for improved U.S.-Syrian relations adding that she wanted to see Damascus “begin to move away” from its relationship with Iran which was “deeply troubling to the region as well as to the United States.”
For long the U.S. has believed that Iran uses Syria as a conduit to support Hezbollah and Hamas, the two outfits categorised as terrorist organizations by the United States and hence banned.
But despite the irritants in ties between Washington and Damascus, there has been some positive developments witnessed recently with career diplomat and Middle East veteran Robert Ford being named U.S. Ambassador to Damascus after a gap of five years.
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