United States House speaker Nancy Pelosi arrived in Syria on Tuesday for a controversial two-day visit amid protests from the White House that she is undermining US policy. Pelosi, an ardent opponent of US President George Bush, smiled and shook hands with Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem.
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/ 11 January 2007
Hamas acknowledges the existence of Israel as a reality but formal recognition will only be considered when a Palestinian state has been created, the movement’s exiled leader Khaled Meshaal said on Wednesday. Softening a previous refusal to accept the Jewish state’s existence, Meshaal said Israel was a ”matter of fact” and a reality that will persist.
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/ 12 September 2006
Four men shouting religious slogans tried to blow up the United States embassy in Damascus on Tuesday but their car bomb failed to go off and Syrian security guards killed three of them in a shootout. No American diplomats were hurt in the assault, a Syrian official said.
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/ 1 September 2006
United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan said on Friday Syrian President Bashar al-Assad had promised to enforce an arms embargo on Hezbollah under a United Nations resolution that halted Israel’s war with the Lebanese group. ”The president informed me that Syria … will help in its implementation,” Annan told reporters after talks with al-Assad in Damascus.
Exiled Hamas political leader Khaled Meshaal said on Monday an Israeli soldier captured by Palestinian militants would not be freed without a prisoner swap but pledged that his life would be protected. ”They talk about one soldier, we have 10Â 000 detainees … this is why we are seeking a prisoner exchange,” he said. ”The solution is simple: an exchange.”
Syria’s internet has emerged as the vehicle for the bold voice of dissent in Damascus, where the state regularly exercises censorship and stifles domestic criticism. The electronic media has pushed the envelope of what is acceptable but at a heavy price.
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/ 10 December 2005
The head of the Islamist group Hamas’s political branch, Khaled Meshaal, has announced that his group will not renew its fragile truce with Israel when it expires at the end of the year. ”We will not enter a new truce while our people are surrounded and are preparing for a new round of conflict,” Meshaal told a rally on Friday.
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/ 31 October 2005
Syria called for an emergency Arab League summit in a bid on Monday to rally regional support in the face of stern United Nations Security Council action that would force greater cooperation from Damascus in the probe of the assassination of a former Lebanese prime minister.
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/ 15 September 2003
The European Union committed a ”big mistake” by blacklisting Hamas as a terrorist organisation, but the move won’t affect the group’s resistance operations, a senior leader of the Palestinian militant group has said.
In Damascus, where anger over the invasion of Iraq alternates with pride in the resistance, there is one sure way to lighten the mood. Suggest the war was launched because of Saddam Hussein’s suspected weapons of mass destruction. Everyone here believes it is a war for oil.