WASHINGTON - US President George W. Bush on Tuesday warned that US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's trip to Syria sent "mixed signals" that undermine US-led efforts to isolate Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
In his first public remarks on the visit, Bush took a dim view of US and European diplomatic outreach to Damascus, declaring that "sending delegations hasn't worked. It's just simply been counterproductive."
"We have made it clear to high-ranking officials, whether they be Republicans or Democrats, that going to Syria sends mixed signals, signals in the region and, of course, mixed signals to President Assad," he said.
"Photo opportunities and/or meetings with President Assad lead the Assad government to believe they're part of the mainstream of the international community, when, in fact, they're a state sponsor of terror," said Bush.
The US president's remarks came in a question-and-answer session with reporters in the Rose Garden of the White House shortly after Pelosi became the highest ranking US official in four years to visit Syrian officials.
Syria is "helping expedite, or at least not stopping, the movement of foreign fighters from Syria into Iraq," Bush charged, adding that Damascus has "done little to nothing to rein in militant Hamas and Hezbollah" and worked to "destabilize the Lebanese democracy."
"There have been a lot of people who have gone to see President Assad: Some Americans, but a lot of European leaders, high-ranking officials. And yet we haven't seen action. In other words, he hasn't responded," said Bush.
"It's one thing to send a message. It's another thing to have the person receiving the message actually do something," said the president, who last year rejected a heavyweight bipartisan commission's call to engage Syria and Iran in a bid to pacify war-torn Iraq.
"The position of this administration is that the best way to meet with a leader like Assad or people from Syria is in the larger context of trying to get the global community to help change his behavior," he said.
04/03/2007 15:17 GMT