The chairman of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee will meet Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in Damascus next week as part of a five-stop trip to the Middle East as Washington works to revive a dialogue between the two countries following years of tension. Senator John Kerry (Democrat from Massachusetts) planned to depart Friday and visit Egypt, Jordan, Israel, the Palestinian territories, Syria, and stop in London on his return trip, Foreign Relations Committee spokesman Frederick Jones said. Kerry, once seen as a possible secretary of state under President Barack Obama, would be traveling to the region as chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee and not as an envoy of the Obama administration, Jones said.
