US Assistant Secretary of State Sauerbrey meets Syrian Deputy Foreign Minister to discuss the problem of one million Iraqi refugees in Syria. For Faisal Meqdad a broader dialogue is needed to address problems in the Arab region, but Sauerbrey remains non-committal. Washington is prepared to take in 7,000 refugees but passport-related red tape is derailing plan.

 

Damascus (AsiaNews) – Syria wants a broader dialogue with the United States over Iraqi refugees. US Assistant Secretary of State for Population, Refugees, and Migration Ellen Sauerbrey met Syria’s Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal Meqdad, yesterday to discuss the humanitarian crisis represented by a million Iraqi refugees now in Syria. Ms Sauerbrey is the highest ranking US official to visit Syria since Washington shut down its embassy following the attack against former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.

 

"We said that all concerns in Arab region are linked and it is necessary to engage in a global dialogue on all of them," Mr Meqdad told reporters. “It is impossible to find lasting solutions [to these problems] without such a dialogue.”

He added that he told Assistant Secretary Sauerbrey that all issues in the region were linked so that a comprehensive dialogue including Syria and Iran was needed.

No overture came from the US side though. Ms Sauerbrey did not make statement and US State Department spokesman Sean McCormack earlier downplayed the Damascus visit saying only that her trip was not a “bilateral mission” and she was only accompanying the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) representative on a humanitarian mission.

Pledges of aid and passport-related red tape

The UNHCR mission announced that over the next few months some 20,000 refugees will be placed abroad, including about 7,000 in the US, which has admitted only 466 Iraqi refugees since 2003. Washington is also going to offer US$ 18 million to the UNHCR for the millions of other Iraqis displaced within and without their country.

However, UN and US good intentions will run up against red tape. Effective January 8, 2007, the US State Department took the decision to invalidate the Iraqi S series passports for travel to the United States. This decision was made after much consideration because the S series passport does not incorporate effective security features and is therefore not a reliable means of determining the bearer's citizenship or identity. 

The only Iraqi passports valid for travel to the United States are passport numbers beginning with the letters G (issued after April 2006) or H (issued before the March 2003 war but quite rare).

Even though US authorities have urged would-be applicants to contact their nearest embassy, Iraqi ambassador to Washington Samir Sumaida'ie said that none of Iraq’s 50 diplomatic missions is technically equipped to issue G passports. The US decision therefore makes it difficult if not impossible for most refugees to reach the ‘promised land.’ The only way to the US is by going back to Baghdad with all the risks and extra costs that that entails.

 

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