Syria approved on Thursday the US government's request to name a new Ambassador to Damascus, filling a post left vacant for five years in the wake former Lebanese leader Rafiq al-Hariri's assassination. "The approval was sent through the diplomatic channels to Washington," a diplomat with knowledge of the decision told CBS News on condition of anonymity. The approval came just one month after a meeting in Damascus between Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and senior US Middle East envoy George Mitchell. US Embassy officials were not available to comment. Last week, Foreign Minister Walid Mouallem confirmed that the US State Department had passed the name of a potential nominee to Syria, but he refused to identify the individual tapped by the Obama administration. "The United States has nominated an ambassador. This is an American sovereign issue and it is Syria's right to study the nomination," Mouallem told a press conference. Diplomats in the Syrian capital, however, identified the nominee as Robert Stephen Ford (at left), currently the deputy US Ambassador to Iraq. A US Embassy official in Baghdad confirmed to CBS News that, as of Thursday, Ford was still at his post.
