Al Maliki insists on security issue

Damascus: Iraq's embattled prime minister received a pledge from Syria's President Bashar Al Assad on Tuesday that Damascus is ready to help with efforts to stabilise Iraq.

But the Iraqi leader conceded the two neighbours still face "real challenges."

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki described the talks yesterday as positive and stressed the importance of having good relations with Syria. Both leaders emphasised that security was of utmost concern.

"We are not complimentary in our speech, [but] we want this visit to be a success and we are interested in stabilising Iraq and improving its situation," Bashar told Al Maliki at the talks.

"Yes, we have mutual interests, and there are real challenges, we have to combine our stances to solve problems and to weave a network of good relations for both countries," Al Maliki responded.

Al Maliki's three-day sojourn in Syria - his first official visit to the neighboring country - comes as part of his efforts to seek neighbours' help in stemming the violence ravaging Iraq.

After the talks with Bashar, Al Maliki said he had insisted on the security issue and that the two agreed to find a mechanism for better border control but gave no details.

He described the talks with Bashar as encouraging and giving "hope of cooperation and understanding." "Without security nothing can be accomplished, and we also offered the possibility of companies to invest in Iraq," said Al Maliki, who lived in Syria in the 1990s as an exile from Saddam Hussain's reign.

But Al Maliki said he was not carrying a message from the Americans to Syria. On Monday, the White House said it thought Al Maliki would deliver a message to stop allowing foreign fighters to cross the border into Iraq.

"I came here carrying the message of Iraq, not messages from others," Al Maliki said later after meeting with Syrian Vice-President Farouk Al Sharaa.

Timetable of withdrawal

The Iraqi leader also pledged to help Syria on the increasing flow of refugees from Iraq - about 1.5 million are living here, mostly in Damascus and the suburbs.

"We expressed our readiness to cooperate" with Syria on how to deal with the refugees and help them return to Iraq, Al Maliki told reporters after meeting Al Sharaa.

Al Maliki on Monday met Prime Minister Mohammad Naji Otri who called on the Iraqi leader to seek a timetable of withdrawal for US-led troops.

"Syria, while recognising the importance of the support of neighbouring countries to the efforts of the Iraqi government to stop the bloodshed, violence and anarchy, believes that the establishment of a calendar for the withdrawal of foreign troops from Iraq would increase the chances of reaching understanding between Iraqis," Syria's news agency Sana quoted Otri as saying.

He "underlined the position of Syria which considers the forces of occupation [as] responsible for the deterioration of the security, economic and social situation in Iraq," and said that "their presence in this country has attracted extremist forces to Iraq and has exacerbated the blind violence which every day leaves dozens of innocent Iraqi victims."