Americas

Americas

U.S. says ambassador won’t return to Syria before Thanksgiving

21 November 2011 23:59 (UTC +04:00)

The statement came after U.S. State Secretary Hillary Clinton on Friday said publicly for the first time that a civil war in Syria is possible.

Victoria Nuland, the State Department spokesperson, cited the ongoing violence on the ground in Syria and other countries’ decisions to withdraw ambassadors from Damascus as reasons for delaying the return of Robert Ford, the U.S. ambassador to Syria.

She also said Washington doubted if Ford can effectively carry out his mission if he returns under the current circumstance, pushing back his new possible return date to the end of this year.

Ford left Syria last month, and the State Department insisted that he was asked to go home for consultations but not withdrawn or recalled.

The envoy had paid controversial visits to many restive areas in Syria in a show of support to anti-government protesters, as the Arab nation has been plagued by unrest since mid-March when protests erupted against Assad’s government. He was hit several times with eggs and tomatoes.

The U.S., its European allies and the Arab countries have ratcheted up the pressure on Syria. At its meeting in Morocco’s capital of Rabat on Wednesday, the Arab League formally suspended Syria’s membership, and gave President Bashar Assad’s government three days to implement a peace plan brokered by the bloc to halt the violence and allow in observers from the organization, or face economic sanctions.

International community is divided on how to settle the crisis in Syria. During her visit to Moscow on Thursday, EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton called for pressure on the Syrian government to stop the violence in the country, while Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov believed that external forces are seeking to deteriorate the situation in Syria in order to justify their interference in Syria’s internal political affairs.