Water, security experts and diplomats join the Syrian delegation to Washington talks
Water experts and diplomats have joined the Syrian negotiating delegation which will accompany Foreign Minister Farouk al-Sharaa to his talks with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak on December 3 in Shepherdstown, West Virginia.
The delegation, besides al-Sharaa, is expected to include the former head of the Syrian Army, retired Lt. Gen. Youssef Shakkour, in his capacity as a military expert; Riyadh al-Dawoudi as a legal expert; retired Lt. Gen. Ibrahim Amr as an expert in the geographical-military area; the former Syrian ambassador in Washington, Walid al-Mu'allim; and the Syrian representative at the UN, Mikhael Wahbah.
The Syrian delegation is also expected to be joined by Deputy Foreign Minister Majid Abu Saleh; member of the political committee and former ambassador Rafik Jeijati; and the former director of the international water department, Majid Dawoud.
Al-Sharaa is being accompanied by director of his office, Samir Qasir; his translator, Butheina Shaaban; and diplomatic translator Suleiman Serra, who was summoned from the Syrian embassy in Geneva.
The majority of the delegation members come from the political committee which is chaired by Lt. Gen. Shakour.
It is also noted that many of them (Jueijati, Abu Saleh and Lt. Gen. Amr) had taken part in the negotiations since their launching in Madrid during the rule of the Likud bloc in Israel, while Dawoudi, al-Mu'allim and Wahbah are from the delegation of the Wye Plantation talks which resulted in achieving 80% of the Syrian- Israeli peace agreement.
The participation of al-Dawoudi after he was summoned from Germany where he has been on a vacation reflects the importance of the issue of water in the coming round of negotiations. Al-Dawoudi had chaired his country's delegation to the Syrian-Turkish committee on waters before he was shifted to the water directorate and replaced by Abdul Aziz al-Masri at the Ministry of Irrigation in Syria. Dawoudi and al-Masri are considered the most important experts in the international water issue with neighboring states.
