DHAKA: The US ambassador to Damascus has said a newly formed Islamist alliance in war-torn Syria has refused to meet with American officials, in an interview aired Wednesday on Al-Arabiya television.

‘The Islamic Front has refused to sit with us without giving any reason,’ Robert Ford said, a day after US state secretary John Kerry described as ‘possible’ a meeting with Syria’s biggest rebel alliance.

‘We are ready to sit with them because we talk to all parties and political groups in Syria,’ Ford was quoted as saying on the Dubai-based channel’s Arabic website.

Ford returned to Washington in February 2012 after rising security problems forced the closure of the US embassy in the Syrian capital.

Six opposition groups came together last month to form the Islamic Front, which brings together tens of thousands of fighters and seeks to oust president Bashar al-Assad and establish an Islamic state in Syria.

Last week, the Front overran the northern headquarters and two warehouses belonging to the US-backed Free Syrian Army, prompting Washington to cut off non-lethal aid to the main secular military opposition in the north, reports TDS.

BDST: 1829 HRS, DEC 18, 2013
Edited by Robab Rosan, Current Affairs Editor