http://www.wnd.com/?pageId=176305JERUSALEM – The Obama administration facilitated the planned opening in Syria of major technology firms such as Google and Microsoft, an official from Syria's foreign ministry told WND.
Syria is in a military alliance with Iran, hosts the leaders of the Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorist groups and is accused of fueling the insurgency against U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.
As part of its diplomatic overtures to Syria, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's top technology adviser, Alec Ross, and Jared Cohen, a member of Clinton's policy planning staff, led a delegation last month of top technology companies to Syria.
Senior executives of five big U.S. technology companies – Microsoft Corp., Dell Inc., Cisco Systems Inc., VeriSign and Symantec Corp. – participated in the trade mission amid expectations Syria's population is set to grow massively in the next seven years. The companies say they want to tap into the country's youth market to promote more open lines of communication to the outside world.
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Although Google was not part of the State Department delegation, the Syrian foreign ministry official claimed to WND the Internet giant is planning to open a headquarters in Syria, as is Microsoft.
Microsoft did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
A spokesman for Google told WND: "The U.S. Treasury Department recently decided to allow the export of Internet communications software and services to Iran and other sanctioned nations where freedom of expression is limited. ... We'll be exploring how we might provide our communications products to them, though we don't have any specific plans to announce at this time."
The Google spokesperson was referring to waivers by the Obama administration in March to allow U.S. technology companies to bypass sanctions and export chat and social-media software to Iran, Sudan and Cuba.
The Syrian government official, meanwhile, claimed to WND the technology companies were responding to diplomatic and economic overtures by the Obama administration to lure Syria from the Iranian axis.
Obama has been openly courting Syria since taking office last year.
The Obama administration announced it would send an ambassador to Syria. The U.S. withdrew its ambassador from Damascus four years ago in protest against the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafic Hariri, who died in a 2005 car bombing widely blamed on Syria.
A top official from Syria's Ministry of Information previously claimed to WND the Obama administration did not extract any major concessions from Syria in exchange for the new U.S. ambassador.
A Palestinian Authority official familiar with the negotiations confirmed: "All the Syrians did was blackmail the Americans. They didn't give the U.S. anything besides some improvement on the Syrian-Iraqi borders. In all the other cases, they didn't change their policy. They are interfering in Lebanon and shipping weapons to Hezbollah. They are partners in the region with Iran. Syria didn't change its equation with Hamas."
Also a partnership deal announced last October would see billions of dollars in trade flow between the European Union and Syria. Egyptian and Palestinian diplomatic sources told WND the Obama administration was instrumental in facilitating the deal, which is worth an estimated $7 billion a year for the Syrian economy.
The deal was ultimately delayed amid diplomatic wrangling. Bush previously opposed the deal, arguing it would end Syria's isolation while it continued its alliance with Iran.
Topic: Google, Microsoft aiding Obama Mideast policies? (Read 444 times)