Rice Meets With Syrian Foreign Minister

By Karen DeYoung and William Branigin
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, May 3, 2007 3:36 PM

SHARM EL-SHEIKH, Egypt, May 3 -- Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice held talks Thursday with Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem, the first such high-level contact in more than two years between the Bush administration and a government it has denounced as a state sponsor of terrorism.

"We talked about Iraq and bilateral relations," Moallem said as he was mobbed by reporters after the 30-minute meeting on the sidelines of an international conference on Iraq at this Red Sea resort.

U.S. officials did not immediately provide details of the meeting, which took place in a side room off the main conference hall. But a U.S. official said before the talks that Rice mainly wanted to discuss security on the border between Syria and Iraq. The United States has accused Syria of allowing foreign fighters, including adherents of the al-Qaeda terrorist network, to flow across the border into Iraq, where they have carried out suicide bombings and other attacks against U.S. and Iraqi targets, including civilians.

In Baghdad Thursday, the chief U.S. military spokesman, Maj. Gen. William B. Caldwell IV, told reporters that Syria has tightened its border in recent weeks. "There has been some movement by the Syrians," he said. "There has been a reduction in the flow of foreign fighters into Iraq" for more than a month.

According to the Syrian Arab News Agency, the official mouthpiece of the Damascus government, Rice and Moallem met "in the presence of members of the Syrian and U.S. delegations." It said the talks "dealt with the situation in Iraq and the necessity of achieving stability and security" there. The two sides also "reviewed the bilateral relations between Syria and U.S.A. and the importance of developing them to serve peace, security and stability in the region," the news agency said.

The meeting took place a month after the Bush administration sharply criticized House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) for leading a congressional delegation to Damascus and holding talks with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. President Bush denounced the visit, calling it "counterproductive" and saying it sent mixed signals to a government that his administration has been trying to isolate.

In Washington, White House spokesman Tony Snow sought to play down the meeting between Rice and Moallem, calling it a "sidebar conversation," rather than formal bilateral talks. "That was a pull-aside conversation," he said, "about the subject of the conference itself."

Snow told reporters, "You ought to expect the fact that when you are at a conference and the topic is how to help Iraq, you will have conversations about how to help Iraq with all the people who are at that conference." He added, "The one and only topic . . . . in Sharm el-Sheikh is to say it is time now to step forward and support the government of Iraq. . . . And for those who are undermining, they need to stop and they need to begin to support the democratically elected government of Iraq. And it really goes no further than that."

Similarly, Snow said, any conversations between Rice and Iranian officials at the conference "would not be bilateral discussions; they would not be formal negotiations."

Separately, the White House announced Thursday that Vice President Cheney will leave May 8 on a trip to the Middle East, visiting the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan to discuss "key issues of mutual interest" with the leaders of those countries. He will also meet with U.S. military commanders "and speak with U.S. troops stationed in the Persian Gulf region," a White House statement said.

The Bush administration downgraded relations with Syria two years ago in view of the Damascus government's alleged complicity in the assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafiq al-Hariri in Beirut in February 2005. In addition to its complaints about the use of Syrian territory by foreign fighters bound for Iraq, Washington also has objected to Syrian support for the Lebanese Shiite Muslim militant group Hezbollah, which fought a cross-border war with Israel last summer.

Before Thursday's conference, the Lebanese government had sought assurances from the United States that it would not discuss Lebanon in any bilateral meeting with Syria, because it wanted a Lebanese representative to be present for such talks.

Last month, Rice told the Financial Times newspaper, "We do not believe that Syria is doing what it should to help stabilize Iraq." But she said the Sharm el-Sheikh conference of Iraq's neighbors would provide a chance to "test the proposition that the neighbors have more to lose from an unstable Iraq than to gain from it." She added, "It's important for Iraq's neighbors to really examine what they're doing and ask whether what they're doing is in the best interest of Iraq but also in their own best interest. Sometimes when people come together and have a chance to talk, they get to see these questions differently."

The Iraq Study Group, a bipartisan panel that reviewed U.S. policy toward Iraq, recommended late last year that the United States engage diplomatically with Syria and Iran as part of an effort to enlist Iraq's neighbors in finding a political solution to the country's insurgency and sectarian violence.

Although Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki is also attending the conference here, U.S. officials said they did not anticipate that Rice would hold a bilateral meeting with him. The officials said they expected the contact between the two to be limited to an exchange of "pleasantries" at a dinner tonight at which Rice is to be seated with the Egyptian host, Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit, and the representatives of Iraq and Iran are to be seated together.

U.S. officials suggested that, in any case, Mottaki was not the right person to engage in a dialogue because of doubts that he can speak for the leadership that holds the real power in Iran.

In a speech, Mottaki told the conference that Iraq's predicament was mainly the fault of the United States.

Thursday's meeting brought together members of the Iraq Compact, a group formed under U.N. auspices to contribute to the reconstruction of Iraq in return for the Iraqi government's commitment to pursue political reconciliation and take steps to modernize its economy. About 60 nations participated, and more than two dozen of them were represented at the ministerial level.

According to U.S. Deputy Treasury Secretary Robert M. Kimmitt, who is attending the meeting, all members of the Paris Club except Russia have now agreed to forgive 80 percent of Iraq's foreign debt. He said Russia is still working on the technical details of debt forgiveness. The Paris Club is a group of financial officials representing 19 of the world's richest nations.

Iraq's total debt had been in excess of $100 billion, and much of it had already been forgiven before Thursday's meeting. About $56 billion remained outstanding, and about $40 billion of that was addressed by conference attendees, Kimmitt said.

After the conference was formally opened by U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki Moon, Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Barham Salih addressed the gathering, calling it "the starting point for steps that will lead us to the future." He acknowledged that Iraq needs to move forward on political participation by all groups, on the rule of law and on economic reform.

Iraq understands that political reconciliation is the "main condition" for international support, he said. He described the main obstacles to achieving it as "external intervention" in his country and vengeance among Iraqi groups.

The government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is committed to disarming all armed groups and needs outside resources to help do so, he said.

"Our interest and the interest of the international community is that Iraq be secure and prosperous," Salih said. But such a result is "not entirely in our hands," and that is why help from other nations is needed, he said.

"We call on you to write off debts, to give effective economic and technical reconstruction assistance and to support Iraqi reconciliation," Salih said. "The future of Iraq is important and decisive, not for Iraq alone but also for the region and the whole world."

In his own address to the conference, Iranian Foreign Minister Mottaki said Iraq's security difficulties are "primarily caused by the flawed policies of the occupying powers and overshadow efforts to deal with other issues."

He spoke generally about the cultural and spiritual ties between Iran and Iraq and said the conference participants had gathered because of "a shared sense of regional and international concern."

"I regret to say that to this day, events and developments in Iraq have not helped to diminish apprehensions and concerns about the future of Iraq and the destiny of its innocent people," Mottaki said. "Quite the opposite, some of the developments have even added additional complications and divisions to the problems besetting that country."

He said it was "essential to use the opportunity of this meeting" to improve the situation in Iraq, adding, "We believe that under the current circumstances, security and reconstruction are fundamental."

Branigin reported from Washington.