DAMASCUS - Syrian President Bashar al-Assad issued a decree appointing Imad Mustafa, Syria's former ambassador to the United States, as ambassador to China, al-Watan newspaper said on Wednesday.

Mustafa served his assignment in Washington from February 2004 to last month, when he was summoned back to Syria.

The US ambassador to Syria Robert Ford returned to Damascus in early December after being away for six weeks over "security concerns."

The Syrian-US relations have hit a new low since the anti-government protests erupted in Syria in March.

The United States, along with the European Union, has slapped several rafts of sanctions against Syria over alleged bloody crackdown on the protests.