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U.S. Ambassador to Syria Robert Ford to retire: sources | Reuters

U.S. Ambassador to Syria Robert Ford is retiring at the end of the month, current and former U.S. officials said on Tuesday.

Ford, a career foreign service officer and a fluent Arabic speaker, was instrumental in negotiating with Syrian opposition groups to join talks in Switzerland last month to try to end Syria's nearly three-year-old civil war.

It was not immediately clear why Ford is retiring. State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki declined to comment on whether Ford planned to retire.