Senator of Massachusetts, John Kerry, visited Syria to talk with President Bashar al Assad about future relationships with Syria. Both sides want better ties, but they disagree on many things. The United States, under the Bush administration had decided in 2005, to withdraw the American Ambassador from Damascus, following Lebanese Prime Minister Hariri's assassination in Beirut, which in result caused the Syrian troops to withdraw from Lebanon. The Syrian President, Bashar al Assad expressed his desire of the American ambassador to come back to Damascus. For better peace ties between the US and Syria, the United States wants Syria to stop supporting groups such as Hizballah and Hamas, (which they call terrorist groups), and then the relationships will be better and will reach new heights. However, President Bashar al Assad replied to this statement, in "The Guardian", a British newspaper, and said that the United States cannot simply ignore Syria in the Middle Eastern peace process because Syria has a huge role to play in this complicated process. He also stated, after the Israeli offensive in Gaza, reaching peace with Israel will be a very difficult thing, if not impossible. (I am just paraphrasing by the way, this is not the President's exact words).
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