Rice talks to Syrian envoy at Iraq meet

US secretary of State Condoleezza Rice met today with Syria’s Foreign Minister, Walid al-Moallem, the first diplomatic contact at such a high level between the two countries in at least two years.

US secretary of State Condoleezza Rice met today with Syria’s Foreign Minister, Walid al-Moallem, the first diplomatic contact at such a high level between the two countries in at least two years.

Rice and Moallem, who are taking part in a two-day international conference here seeking to bring stability to Iraq, met for thirty minutes. Speaking to reporters afterward, Moallem said they discussed issues surrounding the Syria-Iraq border and “bilateral relations” between the US and Syria.

The US withdrew its ambassador from Damascus in February 2005 over reports that the Syrian government may have had a hand in the assassination of Rafik Hariri, the former Lebanese prime minister who opposed Syrian domination of his country.

The meeting between Rice and her Syrian counterpart would therefore have major political significance.

At the international conference, the Bush administration is contending with the prospect that it has lost the confidence of Arab allies frustrated with its failure to stop the bloodshed in Iraq.

While about 60 countries are expected to attend — evidence of global concern over Iraq — the competing agendas here suggest that cobbling together an effective, widely accepted strategy will be hard. Officials from participating nations have haggled for days in Cairo over the elements of a communiqué that the conference plans to deliver.

The contradictory agendas are numerous, analysts say. Washington wants to help the Shi’ite Muslim-led government of Iraq, but the Sunni governments of Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia, while eager for stability, do not trust the Shi’ites with their Iranian links. Egypt wants to increase its role in the process, feeling competitive with the Saudis’ growing role. Syria wants a timeline for an American withdrawal; the Iraqis, the Americans and other Arab governments do not.

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“The Arabs realised that the longer the US stays in Iraq, the deeper and the more complicated Iraq would become as a problem. On the other hand, if the US leaves Iraq, there will be a vacuum, and who could fill that vacuum? Iran is the most eligible force to fill that vacuum,” said Abdel Raouf el-Reedy, a former Egyptian ambassador to the US who served during the Persian Gulf war in 1991.

The US has set modest goals for the gathering, hoping to get lenders to forgive 80 per cent of Baghdad’s $56 billion in foreign debt and declaring the very act of holding the conference a sign of progress. But even those modest goals may run into opposition from some Arab leaders who see any agreement to help the current Iraqi government as a step toward empowering Iran.

–HELENE COOPER & GRAHAM BOWLEY