Iraqi Minister: Iraq will not used for raids on Syria (Roundup)

Nov 12, 2008, 15:33 GMT

Damascus - Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari told his Syrian counterpart Wednesday that Iraq will not be a base for raids on Syria and will soon appoint an Iraqi envoy to Syria.

Zebari, who arrived in Damascus on Tuesday, met with Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem. Zebari also delivered a letter from Premier Nouri al-Maliki to the Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

The letter added that the Iraqi government had not been aware of the US raid on the Syrian village of Abu Kamal near the Iraqi border in late October. Zebari is the first Iraqi official to visit Damascus since that incident, which left seven people dead.

The US government has not officially commented on the US commando operation, but unofficial accounts say the target was an al-Qaeda militant.

Al-Moallem also said that uranium traces found at an alleged nuclear facility by the United Nations nuclear watchdog IAEA may have been left by Israeli warplanes that attacked the site.

'No one has ever asked himself what kind of Israeli bombs had hit the site, and what they contained,' the Syrian minister said, stating that Israel had bombs containing depleted uranium, such as used by the United States in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The Syrian foreign minister described as politically motivated the news leaks about the traces found at the site which was bombed by Israel in September 2007.

'These media leaks are a clear signal that the purpose was to pressure Syria. This means that the subject is not technical, but rather political,' said al-Moallem at a news conference with Zebari.

Western diplomats earlier this week in Vienna confirmed that inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) had found traces of uranium at the suspect site.

The Vienna-based nuclear watchdog is finishing its first written report on Syria since the United States provided the IAEA with intelligence indicating Syria had almost completed a reactor, possibly with the help of North Korean experts.