Syria wants to work with US forces to control Iraq border: senator [View All]

Damascus - President Bashar al-Assad wants US troops to cooperate with his forces to enforce security along the Iraqi border, a visiting US senator said Tuesday after a meeting with the Syrian leader.

"The president and I discussed assistance by Syria in the current problems in Iraq," Republican Senator Arlen Specter said in a statement after his talks here with Assad.

"And one of the principal ways that Syria can be of assistance is to help stop the transfer of insurgents and fighters and terrorists from Syria to Iraq to fight the Iraqi army and the United States army," Specter said. (...)

"President Assad said he has tried to engage the United States to use our forces to work with Syria to control the border, and he says that the United States has not been responsive," Specter said, adding that he would raise the issue with President George W. Bush on his return home.

http://www.nationmultimedia.com/worldhotnews/read.php?newsid=30022582

Syria plans regional conference on Iraq -US senator

DAMASCUS, Dec 26 (Reuters) - Syria is seeking to hold a conference grouping Iraqi factions to try to help stabilise its eastern neighbour, a U.S. senator who has met President Bashar al-Assad said on Tuesday.

Assad opposed the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq but has been adopting a friendlier policy toward the Baghdad government. The two countries re-opened embassies in each other's capitals this month after a decades-long break.

"The president stated that Syria would be willing to host a conference where all of the factions of Iraq would come to Syria to try to work through the problems and try to reach a consensus of what ought to be done in Iraq," Senator Arlen Specter told a news conference.

"President Assad said that Turkey has already been consulted and would participate, as would other Arab countries, to try to find a political solution to what is happening now in Iraq," Specter said before leaving Damascus.

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/OWE646613.htm