QUESTION: Yesterday, the Syrian Foreign Minister, Farouk Shara, issued a statement appealing to the United States for open talks at his level to resolve what are misunderstanding. Have you received anything formally or can you tell us anything about that?

MR. ERELI: Well, this gets to the whole question about dialogue. And I think that, you know, we have an Ambassador there. We have made clear through our Ambassador what our position is on the outstanding issues between our government and the Government of Syria. Secretary Powell made those positions clear in May of last year. Assistant Secretary Burns has been to Syria a number of times.

So I guess the point here is that the issue doesn’t seem to be so much one of dialogue as so much -- as more -- as, rather, one of, "Is anybody listening?"