The United States welcomed the prisoner-of-war exchange between Israel and Syria today as a move likely to ease tensions in the region.
State Department deputy spokesman Alan Romberg said “Basically, we welcome this development on humanitarian grounds and also because we believe it will help lower tensions in the area.” He said the U.S. has “been concerned about the prisoner issue before but this was not something that we worked out.” The two countries worked it out together, he said. Romberg refused to reveal the content of yesterday’s meeting here between Secretary of State George Shultz and Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Arens. They also met at the State Department late Tuesday.
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