Rice hints at Syrian dialogue

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said the US’ poor relationship with Syria is overstated, and indicated an openness to working with Damascus to resolve the crisis in the Middle East.

En route to the region today, Rice noted that the United States still has a diplomatic mission and State Department officials working in the Syrian capital. That presence, she said, is a “channel for dealing with Syria”.

“The problem isn’t that people haven’t talked to the Syrians. It’s that the Syrians haven’t acted,” she said. ”I think this is simply just a kind of false hobby horse that somehow it’s because we don’t talk to the Syrians. It’s not as if we don’t have diplomatic relations,” she said. “We do.”

The State Department considers Syria one of the world’s state sponsors of terror. In recent weeks, the Bush administration has blamed it, along with Iran, for stoking the recent violence in the Middle East by encouraging the Lebanese Hezbollah militia to attack northern Israel.