The US State Department is talking with Syria to discuss US allegations that the Arab country supports terror groups and is pursuing nuclear weapons, a department official said on Friday.
A meeting with the Syrian ambassador, scheduled for this week at the State Department, will be the first such session since September and reflects US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s interest in talking directly with Syria and other countries at odds with the US, spokesman Gordon Duguid said.
“It’s her belief that direct engagement with Syria will advance US interests,” Duguid said.
Syrian Ambassador Imad Moustapha is to meet Acting Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Jeffrey Feltman at Feltman’s request, Duguid said. Clinton is not scheduled to participate.
“Our concerns include Syria’s support to terrorist groups and networks, Syria’s pursuit of nuclear and nonconventional weaponry, interference in Lebanon and a worsening human rights situation,” Duguid said.
The spokesman cited the International Atomic Energy Agency’s report on Thursday that samples taken from a Syrian site suspected of being a secretly built nuclear reactor have revealed new traces of processed uranium.
The report noted the refusal by Damascus to allow agency inspectors to make follow-up visits to sites suspected of harboring a secret nuclear program. Syria denies hiding any such program.
The samples referred to in the report were obtained during a visit in June to the Al Kibar site bombed in 2007 by Israeli jets.
Minute traces of processed uranium from those samples were found late last year and the report reflected additional traces found after additional analysis.
Syria has suggested the traces came from Israeli ordnance used against the site, but the report said the composition of the uranium made that unlikely. Israel has denied it was the source of the uranium.
US-Syrian relations long have been tense, particularly since the US ambassador was pulled out by the George W. Bush administration in 2005 to protest Syria’s suspected role in the assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri. Damascus denied involvement, but in the uproar that followed it was forced to withdraw its troops from Lebanon and end a 29-year military presence in the neighboring country.
The US also has criticized Syria for supporting militant groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah and has accused Syria of not doing enough to prevent foreign fighters from crossing into Iraq.
Seven people sustained mostly minor injuries in an airplane fire in South Korea, authorities said yesterday, with local media suggesting the blaze might have been caused by a portable battery stored in the overhead bin. The Air Busan plane, an Airbus A321, was set to fly to Hong Kong from Gimhae International Airport in southeastern Busan, but caught fire in the rear section on Tuesday night, the South Korean Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport said. A total of 169 passengers and seven flight attendants and staff were evacuated down inflatable slides, it said. Authorities initially reported three injuries, but revised the number
One of Japan’s biggest pop stars and best-known TV hosts, Masahiro Nakai, yesterday announced his retirement over sexual misconduct allegations, reports said, in the latest scandal to rock Japan’s entertainment industry. Nakai’s announcement came after now-defunct boy band empire Johnny & Associates admitted in 2023 that its late founder, Johnny Kitagawa, for decades sexually assaulted teenage boys and young men. Nakai was a member of the now-disbanded SMAP — part of Johnny & Associates’s lucrative stable — that swept the charts in Japan and across Asia during the band’s nearly 30 years of fame. Reports emerged last month that Nakai, 52, who since
EYEING A SOLUTION: In unusually critical remarks about Russian President Vladimir Putin, US President Donald Trump said he was ‘destroying Russia by not making a deal’ US President Donald Trump on Wednesday stepped up the pressure on Russian President Vladimir Putin to make a peace deal with Ukraine, threatening tougher economic measures if Moscow does not agree to end the war. Trump’s warning in a social media post came as the Republican seeks a quick solution to a grinding conflict that he had promised to end before even starting his second term. “If we don’t make a ‘deal,’ and soon, I have no other choice but to put high levels of Taxes, Tariffs, and Sanctions on anything being sold by Russia to the United States, and various other
‘BALD-FACED LIE’: The woman is accused of administering non-prescribed drugs to the one-year-old and filmed the toddler’s distress to solicit donations online A social media influencer accused of filming the torture of her baby to gain money allegedly manufactured symptoms causing the toddler to have brain surgery, a magistrate has heard. The 34-year-old Queensland woman is charged with torturing an infant and posting videos of the little girl online to build a social media following and solicit donations. A decision on her bail application in a Brisbane court was yesterday postponed after the magistrate opted to take more time before making a decision in an effort “not to be overwhelmed” by the nature of allegations “so offensive to right-thinking people.” The Sunshine Coast woman —
RSS