واصلوا الحوار مع سوريا

محادثات كونداليزا رايس للتو ابتدأت

بوست غازيت - 5/5/2007

لنأمل أن الحوار الذي جرى بين رايس والمعلم في شرم الشيخ ما هو إلا بداية لحوار أكبر بين البلدين

Keep talking: With Syria,

 Rice's conversation has just begun

Saturday, May 05, 2007

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice met Thursday with Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Moualem for a half-hour at a conference on Iraq in Egypt .

The meeting broke a three-year period of no high-level contact with Syria , in spite of the key role that it plays in Iraq as well as the overall Middle East . Ms. Rice did not take the opportunity of the 50-nation conference to meet with the Iranian foreign minister, except apparently to exchange pleasantries.

The Bush administration should be commended for ending its ridiculous boycott of meetings with countries that have serious differences with the United States . These included Cuba , Iran , North Korea , Syria and -- before the war -- Iraq .

Although breaking this ban was the right thing to do, there were still problems. The first was the tardiness of the meeting with the Syrians. The Iraq Study Group, a senior, bipartisan body, recommended last year that the United States discuss the problems presented by Iraq with neighboring Syria and Iran . But it took the Republicans losing control of Congress to move the Bush administration off the dime.

The second problem was the meeting's brevity. Ms. Rice says the two sides concentrated on the question of security of the 375-mile Syria-Iraq border and the U.S. desire that Syria stop fighters from crossing it. There are other key problems, however, that the countries need to discuss, including the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, with specific attention to the Golan Heights, which Syria wants to recover, and the situation in Lebanon .

A half-hour definitely would not have sufficed for serious discussion of the subjects of mutual interest to the two countries. Let's hope that the Rice-Moualem meeting was an icebreaker and that in-depth talks with Syria will follow quickly.

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/07125/783582-192.stm

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نشرنا لهذه المقالات لا يعني أنها تعبر عن وجهة نظر المركز كلياً أو جزئياً

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من حق الزائر الكريم أن ينقل وأن ينشر كل ما يعجبه من موقعنا . معزواً إلينا ، أو غير معزو .ـ