AFP - US President Barack Obama's administration has replaced the orders of his predecessor's era with "dialogue" but there is still room for an improvement in relations, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said.

"What has happened so far is a new approach. Dialogue has replaced commands, which is good, but things stopped there," official SANA news agency on Sunday quoted the president as saying.

"It is hard to say that big steps have been taken in bilateral relations," Assad said.

The number of American delegations to Damascus has risen sharply since Obama replaced George W. Bush in the White House, among them two trips by a military team wanting to talk about security along the border between Syria and Iraq.

Deputy Foreign Minister Fayssal Mekdad became the most senior Syrian official for five years to visit the United States when he went to Washington in September for talks with State Department official Jack Lew.

On June 24 the US government announced it would send a new ambassador to Syria after four years without one, although it has yet to implement the decision.

Assad also said that the Obama administration could not be blamed for the deadlock in Middle East peace efforts.

"The current Israeli government does not want peace. There is no partner for peace in Israel. The (US) broker can therefore not do anything or be blamed if the Israeli side does not want peace," he said.

Israel and Syria last year held Turkish-mediated indirect peace talks, focusing on the thorny issue of the return of the Golan Heights, a strategic plateau seized by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war.

But talks between the long-time foes were suspended when the Jewish state waged an offensive against the Palestinian Hamas rulers of the Gaza Strip in late December.

Syria has always made a full return of the Golan a non-negotiable condition for peace, a condition rejected by Israel.