Syria is in a military alliance with Iran, hosts the leaders of the Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorist groups and is accused of fueling the insurgency against U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.
As part of its diplomatic overtures to Syria, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's top technology adviser, Alec Ross, and Jared Cohen, a member of Clinton's policy planning staff, led a delegation last month of top technology companies to Syria.
Senior executives of five big U.S. technology companies – Microsoft Corp, Dell Inc, Cisco Systems Inc, ViriSign and Symantec Corp – participated in the trade mission amid expectations Syria's population is set to grow massively in the next seven years. The companies say they want to tap into the country's youth market to promote more open lines of communication to the outside world.
Although Google was not part of the State Department delegation, the Syrian foreign ministry official claimed to WND the Internet giant is planning to open a headquarters in Syria, as is Microsoft.
Microsoft did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
A spokesman for Google told WND: "The U.S. Treasury Department recently decided to allow the export of Internet communications software and services to Iran and other sanctioned nations where freedom of expression is limited. ... We'll be exploring how we might provide our communications products to them, though we don't have any specific plans to announce at this time."
By Aaron Klein - read more at WND
