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Syria offers to help Obama pull troops from Iraq
Syria's foreign minister said on Wednesday his country would be happy to help U.S. President Barack Obama implement his plan to pull U.S. combat troops out of Iraq. "Syria is ready to offer whatever help is necessary" to make a success of the U.S. withdrawal plan, Walid Moallem told journalists after meeting Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki during a visit to Baghdad. The United States had not asked if it could withdraw troops through Syria, he told a joint news conference with Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshiyar Zebari.
Obama said last month the United States would withdraw all combat troops from Iraq by Aug. 31 next year, leaving about 50,000 troops to advise and train Iraq's own forces. All U.S. troops will have left Iraq by the end of 2011, according to a bilateral security pact. Obama has been reviewing U.S. policy towards Syria and weighing up whether to return an ambassador to Damascus. Earlier this month one of two envoys he sent there for exploratory talks said they had found "a lot of common ground." "We believe the situation in Iraq is improving and we hope it will continue on this course and enable the Iraqi people to see the withdrawal of foreign forces from Iraq, according to the timetable agreed upon," Moallem said. Moualem's visit to Baghdad was his second since Nov. 2006, during which Syria re-established ties with Iraq that had been severed when Saddam Hussein took power. Posted by: 2009-03-26 |
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