Eddie Roth/Post-Dispatch

While the Syrian ambassador to the United States was speaking to St. Louis residents this week, the heretofore chilly U.S.-Syrian relationship was warming across the world.

Syrian Ambassador Imad Moustapha spoke to a community forum at the University of Missouri-St. Louis on Tuesday night, hours after new U.S. secretary of state Hillary Clinton announced from the Middle East that the Obama administration soon will dispatch high-level diplomats to open preliminary discussions in Syria.

Clinton told The New York Times, “We don’t engage in discussions for the sake of conversations. There has to be a purpose to them, there has to be some benefit accruing to the United States and our allies.”

Moustpaha, who has been the Syrian ambassador to the United States since 2004, said the Obama administration is embracing a fresh “attitude and approach” that sharply contrasted to a “disastrous,” lecturing posture of the recent Bush administration.

He described former Senate Majority leader George Mitchell, who was named special envoy to the Middle East by the Obama administration, as “impartial and a man of honesty and integrity.”

“The tone and attitude and the approach is so different,” he said in a meeting with the St. Louis Post-Dispatch editorial board. “To be honest with you, we are optimistic.”

The ambassador praised the new U.S. stance that advocates a pan-Arab, multinational approach to seeking peace in the Middle East. He said that the United States must be at the table to achieve such an eventual breakthrough and that Syria also should be part of that pursuit.

Syria, nation of about 20 million people, has a relatively small population but it plays a significant role as secular Middle East country nation in which Muslims and Christians co-exist, he said.

The war in Iraq has displaced many Iraqis in the Middle East, including 1.5 million refugees who fled to Syria and who have stayed although Iraq has become somewhat more stable.

The former dean of information technology at the University of Damascus said he travels regularly in the United States to engage Americans in dialogue. He complimented Americans for their open-mindedness and respect even when they might passionately disagree with his country’s politics.

On Monday night, the ambassador spoke to a mostly Syrian-born crowd at a community gathering in Kirkwood. He estimated that probably 180 of the 200 people in attendance were doctors or health-care professionals in the St. Louis metro area.

He said that stunted U.S. relations over the last eight years also stifled potential trade between the countries. A Boeing delegation recently visited Syria to explore the possible sale of civilian aircraft in a country that has had no option except to do business with European airline companies.

“We have been defined by others, not by ourselves,” he said. “Syria is not the enemy of the United States.”