Syria Hopes For "Natural Relations" With U.S.

U.S. Middle East envoy George Mitchell, the highest-ranking administration official to visit Damascus since 2005, said on Saturday that Washington was seeking Damascus' help in securing a lasting peace in the Middle East.

A week after U.S. President Barack Obama pledged in his Cairo speech to pursue a broad-based, comprehensive peace agreement in the region, Mitchell arrived in Syria from Lebanon to see if the time is right.

The two-day visit is the most concrete sign yet of rapprochement between Washington and Damascus — a radical departure from the Bush administration. U.S. Acting Assistant Secretary for Near Eastern Affairs Jeffrey Feltman, who also arrived here on Friday, attended the talks.

"We seek peace between the Palestinians and Israelis, between Syria and Israel, between Lebanon and Israel and full normalization between Israel and its Arab neighbors," Mitchell told reporters following his 90-minute meeting with Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad.

"The U.S. and Syria are well aware of the many difficulties ... yet we share an obligation to create conditions for negotiations to begin promptly and end successfully," the U.S. envoy said.

Mitchell spoke of the "integral role" Syria has to play, adding the U.S. was seeking "to build on this effort to establish a relationship based on mutual respect and mutual interest" and that Washington was "looking forward" to this continued dialogue.

"It's my hope that we can also see full diplomatic relations and friendship restored between Damascus and Washington at an early day in the New Year," he said.

The Syrian leader, a Presidential statement said, "explained Syria's firm position in seeking to achieve a just and comprehensive peace on the basis of international resolutions and formulas."

"Assad underlined the importance of serious and constructive dialogue on the ground of mutual respect and interests," the statement said.

Mitchell, on the latest leg of a regional tour that took him to Israel, the West Bank, Egypt, Jordan and Lebanon, is believed to be testing Syria's support for America's stated new drive for peace in the region.

The state-run Syrian Arab News Agency said Mitchell "asserted the commitment of the new U.S. Administration and President Obama in maintain comprehensive peace in the region."

"Both voiced hope for establishing normal Syrian-U.S. ties to serve the interests of the two countries," SANA added, giving no further details.

Syria remains a key regional player with influence over events in Lebanon; a close ally of Iran; a crucial border with Iraq; and a significant relationship with the Islamist Palestinian movement Hamas which controls the Gaza Strip.

The new Israeli government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has ruled out meeting Syria's central demand for peace — the return of the Golan plateau that Israel seized in war in 1967.

Turkey brokered four rounds of indirect talks between the two foes last year, the first such contacts since previous peace negotiations were broken off in 2000 over the fate of the Israeli-occupied land in the Golan Heights, along Syria's border.

But Syria froze contacts when Israel launched a devastating offensive against the Gaza Strip, controlled since June 2007 by the Islamic militant movement Hamas. Hamas' exiled leader, Khaled Mashaal, lives in Damascus.

The U.S.-Syrian relationship has been strained in recent years over the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the war in Iraq and the ongoing political struggle between pro- and anti-Syrian factions exerting influence in Lebanon. The United States has not had an ambassador in Damascus since 2005.

Diplomats disclosed a delegation of U.S. military commanders also sat with Syrian officials on Friday and discussed joint efforts to combat the Iraqi insurgency. The visits were arranged in a telephone call last week between Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Mouallem.

"We agreed on a road map to normalize U.S.-Syrian relations in all fields — political, security, and cultural. We agreed we have a mutual, shared vision that centers around these three points: to stabilize Iraq, to work for a comprehensive peace in the Middle East, and to cooperate on combating terrorism," the Syrian chief of diplomacy has revealed.

By CBS News' George Baghdadi reporting from Damascus.