U.S. to send envoy to Syria after 4 year hiatus

President Barack Obama has decided to return a U.S. ambassador to Syria after a four-year hiatus as talks between the two nations intensify, U.S. media reported on Tuesday, Haaretz reported

The State Department informed Syria's ambassador to Washington, Imad Mustafa, of Obama's intention on Tuesday night, a senior administration official told the Washington Post.

By returning a senior U.S. envoy to Damascus, Obama is seeking to carve out a far larger role for the United States in the region as he works to rehabilitate U.S. relations with the Islamic world and the Arab Middle East, the newspaper said.

It's in our interests to have an ambassador in Syria," a senior administration official told CNN.

Ambassador Mustafa welcomed the decision to name a U.S. envoy to increase dialogue among stakeholders in the Middle East, CNN said. The announcement of a new ambassador is expected to be made later this week but no individual has been chosen to fill the post, the report states.

A State Department spokesperson was not immediately available late on Tuesday.

Washington withdrew its ambassador from Syria in 2005 to protest the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri was assassinated.

The United Nations has cleared the way for a tribunal to investigate the circumstances of that killing. A preliminary report from the UN implicated several Syrian and Lebanese officials in the assassination.

Relations between Syria and the United States improved after Obama took office in January and U.S. officials said he was committed to seeking a peace deal between Syria and Israel as part of an overall Middle East peace deal.

The Syrian government, however, remains under U.S. sanctions, partly because of what the United States describes as a Syrian role in helping insurgents infiltrate Iraq.

The decision to appoint a U.S. ambassador follows a series of recent visits to Damascus by high-level U.S. military and diplomatic delegations, including a trip there this month by Obama's Middle East envoy, George J. Mitchell.

"We've been having more and more discussions, and we need to have someone there to engage," the administration official told CNN.

Recent post-election unrest in Iran was not directly responsible for the decision to increase direct ties to Syria, the source told CNN.