However, to our big surprise, only last month in New York in September, while we were attending the U.N. General Assembly meetings, [U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza] Rice out of the blue requested a meeting with our foreign minister. So we sat with her, and the meeting was pleasant. Two days later, this meeting was followed with an extensive, in-depth meeting with Assistant Secretary of State David Welch. Every issue was discussed, and in general the overwhelming tone of the meeting was very positive. He told us clearly that the United States was reevaluating its policies towards Syria. We thought, “Things [are] finally starting to move in the right direction.”

And suddenly, this [raid in eastern Syria] happens. I don’t believe the guys from the State Department were actually deceiving us. I believe they genuinely wanted to engage diplomatically and politically with Syria. We believe that other powers within the administration were upset with these meetings and they did this exactly to undermine the whole new atmosphere.

FP: U.S. presidential hopeful Barack Obama says that he would be willing to sit down with states that are now considered enemies of the United States. Is that encouraging to you?

IM: I have reason to believe that even if [Senator John] McCain becomes president of the United States, he will also be inclined to sit and talk with Syria. I can tell you this on the record: Senator Joe Lieberman, who is supposed to be very close to McCain, has said this explicitly and very clearly to me personally.

FP: There were news reports about negotiations between Syria and Israel for a while, but they seemed to have stopped. Is the Syrian-Israeli peace track still active?

IM: The only reason [the talks] stopped is the domestic issues in Israel. We had three rounds of talks, and they were very good and very promising. But then [Prime Minister] Ehud Olmert resigned, and there were talks about forming a new cabinet. The natural thing is that the peace talks will stop until a new cabinet is formed in Israel. And the Turks who are negotiating and mediating between us and the Israelis have told us that once a new government is installed [in Jerusalem], they will immediately resume their role as a broker of peace between us and the Israelis. They will contact the Israelis and work on convening a fourth round of talks.

Imad Moustapha is Syria’s ambassador to the United States. He blogs about art and his personal life at imad_moustapha.blogs.com.