A senior American official on Wednesday met the Syrian president as part of President Barack Obama's efforts to improve ties with Damascus after years of tense relations. According to the AP, William Burns, the U.S. undersecretary of state for political affairs, was received Wednesday by President Bashar Assad.
Burns is the highest ranking U.S. official to visit Syria since January 2005. The visit comes a day after Obama said he would nominate a prominent diplomat to become the United States' first ambassador to Damascus since 2005.
