DAMASCUS, 16 May 2003 — Iran’s President Mohammad Khatami held coordination talks on the post-Iraq war Middle East with his Syrian counterpart Bashar Assad here yesterday, as Washington issued a fresh warning to both their countries. Khatami, ending a two-day visit, said Iran and Syria share “concerns over the developments in the region and the situation in Iraq” following the US-led war to topple Saddam Hussein, Syria’s state-run news agency SANA reported.
He paid tribute to “Syria’s principled stands and its responses to the evolving situation in the region,” SANA added. On the Arab-Israeli conflict, Bashar joined Khatami in underlining support for “a lasting peace based on justice and one which must ensure people’s rights and dignity,” it said. The Syrian president stressed the importance of continued coordination between Damascus and Tehran “to preserve the unity of Iraq, to reach a just and global settlement of the Israeli-Arab conflict and achieve Middle East peace.”
Amid strained ties since the US-led war on Iraq that Syria strongly opposed, US National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice on Wednesday warned Iran and Syria against behavior it considers detrimental to Washington’s interests.
“Iran continues to engage in a behavior that is deeply troubling and antithetical to American interests,” she said, citing its nuclear program and suspected aid to terrorist groups including Al-Qaeda.
“Iran’s (weapons of mass destruction) program, its nuclear program - the US has raised alarm over these programs over a long period of time,” she said. Rice also cautioned Iran against trying to secretly import its brand of government into neighboring Iraq, adding, “We expect Iran to behave to the new Iraqi government as a good neighbor.” As for Syria, said Rice,
Washington’s relationship with Damascus has been “problematic because of the policies and behavior of Syria ... Syrian support for terrorism.
“Frankly this a very difficult relationship, not one that is likely to improve without some major change ... It’s important that Syria be willing and ready to end its occupation of Lebanon,” said Rice.
On the bilateral front, Iran and Syria agreed during Khatami’s visit to set up a committee to study the possibilities of liberalizing trade, SANA said. the panel will also aim to boost cooperation in oil, health and banking. The president, who flew in from Lebanon on Tuesday, traveled yesterday to Yemen and was to wind up his post-war Arab tour in Bahrain.
Syria also said it wants to resume peace talks with Israel but voiced skepticism that the Israeli government was serious in seeking peace. “All the ingredients are there if Israel is serious about peace,” Foreign Minister Farouk Shara said after meeting with European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana.
But he said he was not certain Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s government was serious about achieving peace and that the resumption of talks should be based on relevant UN resolutions, the outcome of the Madrid peace conference in 1990 and the land-for-peace formula.
Solana who met with Bashar and Shara earlier in a bid to revive peace efforts said the European Union “would like to help as much as possible to solve that (Golan) problem.” Solana who officially handed Syria the US-backed Middle East road map peace plan, described his talks with Bashar as “very fruitful” and reiterated that EU believes that the plan can achieve comprehensive peace. “We talked very clearly that the road map was a map toward comprehensive peace so that mean all the tracks including the Syrian and the Lebanese tracks,” he told reporters.
