A community portal about Syria with blogs, videos, and photos. According to Wikipedia.org: Syria is officially the Syrian Arab Republic. Itis a country in the Middle East, bordering Lebanon to the west, Israel to the southwest, Jordan to...
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A community portal about Syria with blogs, videos, and photos. According to Wikipedia.org: Syria is officially the Syrian Arab Republic. Itis a country in the Middle East, bordering Lebanon to the west, Israel to the southwest, Jordan to the south, Iraq to the east, and Turkey to the north. The modern state of Syria attained independence from the French mandate of Syria in 1936, but can trace its historical roots to the fourth millenium BC; its capital city, Damascus, was the seat of the Umayyad Empire and a provincial capital of the Mameluke Empire.
There has been a fair amount of speculation that the decision by the Obama Administration to supply parts for the repair of Syrian 747’s was an indication of a rehabilitation of Syria-US relations. Although there are other indicators of a change of approach by the US towards Damascus, this isn’t part of that strategy. The Counterterrorism blog has the story. We can reproduce their article in full as it is created under a Creative Common License:
Washington Licenses Parts for Syrian 747s... Read Full Story
A little story that slipped through the net in many papers is the report that for the first time in five years a senior Syrian diplomat is visiting Washington, DC for talks with the Obama Administration. Syria has a reasonable relationship with Iran, both have been pariah states to the US for yeas, and so have banded together for support. However, if the Obama regime can rebuild the bridges with Syria and bring them back in from the cold, it opens a back door to negotiations with Iran... Read Full Story
The UN atomic watchdog has found further uranium particles, as well as traces of graphite at a remote desert site in Syria, which the US alleges was a covert nuclear reactor, it emerged Thursday. UN inspectors detected more unexplained uranium particles at Al-Kibar, the International Atomic Energy Agency said in a restricted report. And a senior official close to the agency revealed for the first time that particles of graphite had also been found at the site, but that it was too early to... Read Full Story
Lebanon approved on Tuesday Syria's nominee for its first ambassador to Beirut, five months after the two neighbours established diplomatic ties for the first time, an official said. "President Michel Sleiman on Tuesday approved the nomination of Ali Abdel Karim Ali as the Syrian Arab Republic's ambassador to Beirut," the official in the president's office said. Lebanon's ambassador to Damascus, career diplomat Michel el-Khoury, was named at the start of the year and an embassy was opened in... Read Full Story
It has been a busy few days for Damascus, and for the media that have been following the US attack inside Syria. The US has still not officially confirmed or denied the attack inside the Syrian border that killed 8 people was a US action. Syria however, unlike Pakistan who is subject to similar US incursions, is not just making diplomatic protests - it is taking action. Syria has cut off diplomatic ties with Iraq. Syria is angered that Iraq was used as a staging post for the attack. In... Read Full Story
Is it true? There is a rumor spreading like wild fire through the Middle East this morning that President Bush is offering to pressure Israel to leave the Golan Heights if Syria stops co-operating with Iran. The rumor says that in a series of secret calls and a hand written letter, well outside of normal diplomatic channels, that Bush has made the offer directly to Syrian Prime Minister, Bashar al-Assad.
This would be the first such concession and must- if accurate - be a tempting offer... Read Full Story
I didn’t think it would be a face to face meeting in which the Secretary will have questions to ask us rather I thought it would be like an informal reception to the Secretary at the ambassador resident. He was interested in hearing from us as Syrian youth how we think the best way to develop relations between Syria and the UK; he was interested as well in hearing our thoughts about how we see development is going in Syria, the educational system that he said that it is too French, and we... Read Full Story
Damascus will take receipt of advanced MiG 31E fighter jets in the near future, the outgoing head of the Pentagon's Defense Intelligence Agency Lt.-Gen. Michael D. Maples told the Senate earlier this month. Reports of the sale surfaced in 2007 but were quickly denied by Moscow and the official state arms-trading monopoly Rosoboronexport, which issued a statement saying "Russia has no plans to deliver fighter jets to Syria." In his testimony "annual threat assessment" to the Senate Armed... Read Full Story
A central component of Israeli ‘basic’ security is deterrence. The idea is that of maintaining the balance of force on Israel’s side, and the reputation for applying it without reserve, in order to deter Arab states and other military organisations from launching attacks on Israel. Such an idea assumes rational actors, who make cost-benefit calculations, such that Israel tries to ensure that the apparent costs of attack will always be greater than the benefits. The background reason that... Read Full Story
A senior Russian official confirms inking a contract for supplying Syria with the advanced MiG-31 fighter jets but adds that the deal has not yet been sealed.
“A few years ago, two contracts were signed, one for (supplying Syria with) MiG-29s and one for MiG-31s,” the daily Kommersant quoted Alexei Fyodorov, the head of Russia’s United Aircraft Corporation, as saying on Thursday.
“Consultations on this contract are now ongoing, so its future is unclear,” Fyodorov emphasized... Read Full Story
