The United States said Syria can play "an important and constructive role" in the Middle East after senior US envoys and top Syrian officials met in Damascus yesterday in a bid to defuse past tension.

Jeffrey Feltman said that he and fellow envoy Daniel Shapiro held the "view that Syria can play an important and constructive role in the region," after their talks with Foreign Minister Walid Muallem and other Syrian officials.

Feltman, speaking to reporters in Washington in a conference call from Damascus, declined to give details on the talks other than to say they were "constructive" and covered bilateral, regional, and international issues.

"We found a lot of common ground today," the acting secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs said without elaborating.

Feltman said the talks in Damascus built on the February 26 meeting he had in Washington with the Syrian ambassador to the US, Imad Mustafa.

Sign up to our free newsletters

Get the best updates straight to your inbox:
Please select at least one mailing list.

You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link in the footer of our emails. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform. By subscribing, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing.