Al-Assad calls on US to be objective

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad on Saturday in Damascus received member of the US Congress and Chief of the Middle East center for peace and economic cooperation Wayne Owens and members of the accompanying delegation.

Present at the meeting were the Syrian foreign minister Farouk al-Shara and the US ambassador in Damascus Theodore Qattouf.

Discussions during the meeting dealt with the situation in the Middle East and other regional and international issues.

Al-Assad said that reaching peace must be preceded by a clear cut vision from the US administration. He explained that "this vision must be made not only by the US alone but in cooperation with other countries concerned with a view to going on the peace process provided that this process should not be connected with ceremonial measures while the ceremony is held on the one hand and acts of killing are incessantly carried out, on the other hand."

Al-Assad also wondered over the uselessness of the calls for negotiations. He questioned: "what we can negotiate on, and what can negotiations produce if there is no clear course... The required negotiations should consequently be known in respect to limits and disciplines." He stressed Syria's inclination towards peace which must be based on principles of the Madrid terms of reference conference and implementations of the UN Security Council resolutions concerned.

He also called on the US to make its political discourse objective as it is illogical to say that the current Israeli government is a peaceful one while it continued to kill thousands of Palestinians.

Owens, on the other hand, expressed satisfaction over the Syrian President's view point towards the region, stressing the need for Syria's participation in any peace process due to its important role and position in the ME region.