Iraq to resume relations with Syria

Iraq’s interim leader said that diplomatic relations with neighbouring Syria, broken off since the 1980s, would be restored, and the two countries would form a committee to study security issues amid concern over terrorists sneaking into Iraq.

“We are opening a new page with Syria,” Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi told reporters following a meeting with Syrian President Bashar Assad on Saturday.

“It is clear that our visit here is the beginning of a bright chapter in relations between our two brotherly people.”

Syria’s official news agency, SANA, said Allawi and Assad agreed to resume diplomatic relations “as soon as possible” after they were broken off in the early 1980s when war broke out between Iraq and Iran.

“This will surely happen. Relations will be restored and they will be strong,” Allawi said.

On the sensitive security issue, Allawi said the two countries share the same points of view.

“This is something that has been agree upon. We have formed a joint committee to look at these issues in detail in the future and the weeks ahead. This is a process that will be ongoing.”

Allawi, who travels to Lebanon today, also urged Arab leaders to stand up to terrorists, calling on Egypt not to bow to the demands of kidnappers of an Egyptian diplomat.

Insurgents who abducted diplomat Mohammed Mamdouh Helmi Qutb as he left a Baghdad mosque on Friday have demanded his country abandon any intention to send security experts to support Iraq’s new government.

The Egyptian government has said little about its efforts to free Qutb, noting the sensitive nature of the situation.

“It is time for us to close ranks to fight terrorism. There is no way to budge to terrorists and give them what they want,” Allawi said.

“The only way to deal with terrorism is to promote justice and to close ranks, and we hope Egypt and the Egyptian government will act accordingly,” he said.

He said it was “regrettable” that the Philippines acquiesced in meeting kidnappers’ demands.

Kidnappings have been frequent in recent months, and insurgents appear to have been emboldened after forcing the Philippines to withdraw its 51-member peacekeeping contingent earlier this week to save the life of a Filipino truck driver they were holding.

“We are not going to give up. We are going to win, we assure you. We will prevail and the terrorists will be brought to justice,” Allawi added.

At the joint news conference with Syrian Prime Minister Naji al-Otari, Allawi also dismissed as rumours Syrian statements that suggested Israel had a presence in Iraq and was somehow fomenting violence there.

“There are no Israelis in Iraq. I deny this categorically,” he said.

During a meeting of Iraq’s neighbours and Egypt in Cairo earlier this week, the Syrian delegation proposed condemning the purported role in Iraq of US ally Israel.

The issue was defused when Iraq’s foreign minister denied the reports, and invited Arab countries to send military or security officials to investigate for themselves.

Al-Otari pledged yesterday that Syria would do everything in its power to “achieve security and stability in Iraq.” He said both countries had agreed on the importance of ”safeguarding Iraq’s unity ... restoring its full sovereignty and doing what is necessary to end the foreign occupation.”

Syria has long been a haven for Iraqis opposed to former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein. Yet it was one of the strongest and most vocal opponents of the US-led war on Iraq, and greeted Allawi’s government with suspicion, questioning whether it was a US puppet regime.

The US repeatedly has accused Syria of allowing or not doing enough to stop infiltration of Muslim fighters through the Syrian border to Iraq to fight coalition forces. Syria has denied the accusations, but it also said it cannot thoroughly police its border with its eastern neighbour.

The under-secretary of the Iraqi Finance Ministry, Sabah Aouni, said that continuing discussions between the two countries would include Iraqi assets frozen in Syrian banks since the coalition toppled Saddam’s regime.