Iraqi Prime Minister al-Maliki pays first official visit to Syria - Haaretz

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Mon., August 20, 2007 Elul 6, 5767

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		Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki on his first official visit to Syria. (AP)

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Last update - 15:54 20/08/2007

Iraqi Prime Minister al-Maliki pays first official visit to Syria

By The Associated Press

Iraq's embattled Nouri al-Maliki came to Syria on Monday on his first visit there as prime minister amid efforts to garner neighbors' support for curbing violence at home.

The three-day sojourn by the Iraqi Shiite leader is expected to focus on the sensitive border issues plaguing the two nations.

The United States and Iraq have repeatedly accused Syria of failing to reign in the flow of militants, foreign fighters and arms across the porous boundary into Iraq.

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Syria denies the charges that it is fueling the anti-American insurgency, saying it is impossible to control the long desert border.

Last week, al-Maliki went to Turkey and Iran, and said he would continue traveling to other countries to seek help in stemming the violence that has ravaged Iraq.

Syria's official news agency SANA said that al-Maliki talks here would deal with the current security and political situation in Iraq, as well as economic cooperation between the two countries.

Syria hosts nearly two million Iraqi refugees who have sheltered mostly in Damascus and its suburbs. Damascus has lately complained of the increasing number of Iraqis pouring into the country and has called on the U.S. as an occupying power in Iraq and the Iraqi government to shoulder their responsibilities and share the burden of providing for the refugees.

Al-Maliki was accompanied on the trip by a high-level Iraqi delegation, including ministers of interior, trade, oil and water resources. He is expected to hold talks with Syrian leaders, including President Bashar Assad, his deputy Farouk Sharaa and al-Maliki's Syrian counterpart Naji Ottri.

This visit is to implement the government's policy that depends on the basis of security, economic and political relations with the neighboring countries and ways to enhance these relations, al-Maliki told reporters accompanying him on the trip.

"We will discuss the serious security file and its challenges, which concern not only Iraq but the whole region," al-Maliki said. "We will discuss the Iraqi community and immigrants in Syria and the ways to provide them with services."

Interior Minister Jawad al-Bolani told The Associated Press that Iraq and Syria have signed a note pledging to exchange information. Also, Syria has handed over 13 suspects sought by Baghdad, he said, but did not provide details about the suspects.

"There is also an exchange of information about the terrorist cells," al-Bolani said. "We will discuss the file of the wanted from Saddam's regime."

At home, al-Maliki's already shaky government has been hit with a series of Cabinet desertions by both Shiite and Sunni Arabs, although the Kurdish portion of his coalition has held fast so far.

Syria's state-run Al-Thawra newspaper said the visit by al-Maliki - who lived in Syria in the 1990s as a refugee from Saddam Hussein's reign in Iraq - would be a chance to present the Syrian response to all that can alleviate the suffering of the brotherly (Iraqi) people.

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1.	MALIKI+AHMADINEJAD+SYRIA	14:06	\|	indrajaya	20/08/07

2.	What state of Iraq?	14:44	\|	Yonatan	20/08/07

3.	More fence mending	16:00	\|	Mark Lincoln	20/08/07

4.	Thanks to the US	17:26	\|	State of Shambles	20/08/07

5.	Maliki the double agent	17:33	\|	Chaim Gorenstein	20/08/07

6.	Yonaton - All Views are Distorted	17:47	\|	Mark of Lewiston	20/08/07

7.	Mark of Lewiston	19:49	\|	Mark Lincoln	20/08/07

8.	The only consistency - Mark of Lewiston	19:58	\|	Mark Lincoln	20/08/07

9.	Mark Lincoln	20:32	\|	Mark of Lewiston	20/08/07

10.	israelis should not be happy	21:29	\|	ayman	20/08/07

11.	Mark of Lewiston - it is a mess, and it is there mess	22:44	\|	Mark Lincoln	20/08/07

12.	Ayman, somewhere on your keyboard	22:50	\|	Mark Lincoln	20/08/07

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