Syrian Foreign Minister Abdel Halim Khaddam told U.S. presidential envoy Philip Habib today that Washington’s strategic cooperation agreement with Israel precluded its mediating in the Middle East, poltiical sources said.
Habib met with Khaddam shortly after he arrived in Damascus today and the offical response to his visit appeared to be as cold as the welcome extended by the state-controlled media.
Political sources said Khaddam told Habib, ‘The only thing that has changed since the last visit is that the United States now has a strategic cooperation agreement with Israel.’
Habib, on his fourth swing through the region since May, arrived just as Washington and Jerusalem approved a strategic accord that, among other things, calls for joint military planning and maneuvers.
The sources said Habib was told the accord made the United States ‘a party in the Middle East conflict’ and thus ruled out a role for Washington in solving the region’s crisis.
No further comment on the meeting was made and Habib, as has become his standing rule, said nothing.
Habib arrived earlier today to a hostile reception from the government-controlled news media, aggravated by a weekend bomb attack in the Syrian capital.