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Iraqi president gets Syria vow of support

By ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published January 15, 2007

DAMASCUS, Syria - Syria's leader promised to help ease tensions in neighboring Iraq during Iraqi President Jalal Talabani's landmark visit to Damascus on Sunday, just days after President Bush accused Syria of backing the Iraqi insurgency.

A veteran Kurdish politician who spent years in exile living in Syria, Talabani is the first Iraqi president to visit Damascus in nearly three decades. His trip was seen as part of an attempt to warm relations between the longtime rivals.

An Iraqi lawmaker with close ties to Talabani said the visit was not meant as a snub to Bush. The six-day trip had been planned for nearly a year and its date was finalized about two weeks ago, Kurdish lawmaker Mahmoud Othman said from Baghdad.

But he acknowledged that the timing "may seem a little tricky" after Bush's speech and said Iraq needed to follow its own foreign policy goals independent from Washington's agenda.

"Our interests differ from those of the United States," he said. "The enmity between the United States and Syria and Iran doesn't benefit the situation in Iraq."

Syria's official news agency SANA said that the talks between Syrian President Bashar Assad and Talabani focused on "bilateral relations," and that both sides expressed a desire to strengthen ties between their countries. Assad also stressed Syria's readiness to help Iraq achieve national reconciliation and political stability to help end the increasing sectarian violence in the country, the state news agency said.

Also Sunday, Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari called for the release of five Iranians detained by U.S. forces in what he said was a legitimate diplomatic mission in northern Iraq.

The U.S. military said the five Iranians detained last week in the Kurdish-controlled northern city of Irbil were connected to an Iranian Revolutionary Guard faction that funds and arms insurgents in Iraq. It was the second U.S. raid targeting Iranians in Iraq in less than a month.

[Last modified January 15, 2007, 01:15:46]