Damascus wants dialogue with Washington despite month-old US economic sanctions that arch-foe Israel was behind, Foreign Minister Farouq al-Shara said in remarks published on Sunday.
"The Syria Accountability Act is a law that runs counter to international law. Israel succeeded in passing it to Congress without any questions or answers," Shara told leading Kuwaiti daily al-Qabas in an interview.
Many Arabs said the imposition of economic sanctions in May was one of a series of US Middle East policy mistakes driven by a bias towards Israel, the only country in the region to welcome the step.
President George W. Bush banned all US exports to Syria other than food or medicine, accusing it of backing terrorism, seeking unconventional weapons and doing too little to stop anti-US militants from crossing its border into Iraq.
Syria denies giving more than political support to groups fighting Israeli occupation in the West Bank and Gaza Strip and to Lebanese guerrilla group Hizbollah. Washington classifies those as terrorist groups.
Asked if US-Syrian relations had reached a dead end, Shara replied: "American-Syrian relations are bad because of the bad American policy in the region, and due to its blind bias in favour of Israel, and we hope they don't reach a dead end.
Comments
Comments are closed.