Syria expects the US to send an ambassador to Damascus soon to make good on Barack Obama's offer to engage in dialogue with countries the Bush administration shunned, President Bashar al-Assad told the Guardian today.
Assad used a rare newspaper interview to set out his hopes for a new relationship with the US now the Bush era is over – one he hopes will see Washington act as the "main arbiter" in the moribund Middle East peace process. "There is no substitute for the United States," Assad said.
Referring to Obama's call for countries to "unclench their fists" , Assad said he believed the new US president had been referring to Iran. "We never clenched our fist," he declared. "We still talked about peace even during the Israeli aggression in Gaza."
A US decision on whether to send an ambassador back to Damascus is part of a review Obama ordered on taking office. The US is attracted to the idea of engaging with Syria, seeing potential for bringing Assad in from the cold, helping with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and loosening Syria's close ties with Iran.
Later this week, Assad will see Senator John Kerry, the influential chairman of the Senate foreign relations committee and the most senior American to visit Damascus in years. Kerry has been advocating the swift return of a US ambassador, which was withdrawn in 2005 after the murder of the former Lebanese prime minister Rafiq al-Hariri. The killing was widely blamed on Syria, despite strenuous denials from Damascus.
"An ambassador is important," Assad said. "Sending these delegations is important. This number of congressmen coming to Syria is a good gesture. It shows that this administration wants to see dialogue with Syria. What we have heard from them – Obama, Clinton and others – is positive." But he added: "We are still in the period of gestures and signals. There is nothing real yet."
Such a rapprochement would require Syria to break its links with Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza, both classified by Washington as terrorist groups, and to make a bigger effort to close its border to foreign fighters in transit to Iraq.
There was no sign, however, that Assad is prepared to renounce or downgrade Syria's relations with either group – or, as the US would like to see, with Iran, Syria's strategic ally since 1979.
Asked about Assad's comments on welcoming back a US ambassador, a state department official said: "Our policy toward Syria remains under review. Until that review is completed, I am not going to get into the details of those discussions."
Underlining his hopes for a significant shift from Washington, the Syrian leader said he would welcome a visit to Damascus by General David Petraeus, the head of US central command, to discuss collaboration over Iraq and other issues. A planned visit by Petraeus was blocked by the Bush White House.
"We would like to have dialogue with the US administration. We would like to see him [Petraeus] here in Syria," Assad said.
Another cause of tension between the two countries is a building destroyed by Israeli forces in Syria last year that the US says was a secret nuclear plant.
Assad was pessimistic about the prospects for brokering a lasting peace with the incoming Israeli administration, which is likely to be a centre-right coalition. "Betting on the Israeli government is a waste of time," he said. But peace talks, he predicted, would resume eventually.
Israel's recent incursion into Gaza, warned Assad, had implications for the prospect of peace talks with Syria, but he was confident these would restart. "It will make it harder, but in the end we will return to talks."
The US could not afford to ignore Syria, he said. "We are a player in the region. If you want to talk about peace, you can't advance without Syria."
Syrian-US relations deteriorated sharply under the Bush administration, which accused Syria of allowing foreign fighters to cross its border into Iraq. Syria denied doing so, saying it was impossible to control the country's extensive desert border with Iraq.
Assad also urged the US and Europe to engage with Iran and not to pin false hopes for change on this summer's presidential elections. "This is an Iranian issue," he said. "In Iran there is unity about the main national issues. Forget about the rhetoric.
"I would say to Obama and the Europeans: 'Don't waste your time on this. Go and make dialogue.' The only way is to go for direct engagement."
Assad, who is also mending fences with Saudi Arabia, a longtime rival, said he backed a return to the format of the Madrid peace conference of 1991, when all Arab states agreed to negotiate a comprehensive peace with Israel. Yasser Arafat's launch of the Oslo process with Israel had been a mistake, he believed.
The Syrian leader made it clear he would not be pressured into making gestures. The US and Britain would like him to send an ambassador to Beirut after last year's historic establishment of diplomatic relations between Syria and Lebanon. But he warned: "We will not send an ambassador to Lebanon because Britain, France and the US want us to. This is a sovereign issue. We are not doing it for Europe or for anyone else."
Assad said he was unconcerned by the opening on 1 March of the UN tribunal investigating the Hariri assassination, which some observers feel was driven by a US political agenda and could become a significant barrier to the accelerating rapprochement with the west. Any request for the handover of Syrians to the tribunal would require Syria's agreement, he said.