Syria Says It Will Send Envoy to Iraq

Thu Feb 2, 8:06 PM ET

DAMASCUS, Syria - Syria will exchange ambassadors with Iraq after a new Iraqi government is formed, Syria's official news agency reported Thursday, marking the first time Damascus has set a time frame for restoring full diplomatic ties with Baghdad after a 23-year break.

Syrian Foreign Minister Farouk al-Sharaa said Syria wished to have "the closest relations with Iraq based on historical and geographical ties," according to SANA.

Syria broke relations with Baghdad in 1982 after accusing Iraq of inciting riots by the banned Muslim Brotherhood in Syria. Commercial ties improved in the last few years of Saddam Hussein's regime before he was overthrown in 2003. The two countries maintain only interest sections in each other's capitals.

"After the formation of the new Iraqi government, (Syria and Iraq) will exchange ambassadors, and delegations from both countries will make visits to strengthen cooperation in all fields," al-Sharaa told a visiting delegation of Iraqi journalists, according to SANA.

There have been talks in the past year between Syria and Iraq on restoring diplomatic ties and exchanging ambassadors but no date has been set for opening embassies and appointing ambassadors.

The announcement comes at a time Syria is feeling increasingly isolated, particularly over last year's assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri in Beirut. A U.N. commission investigating the killing has already implicated top Syrian security officials.

Syria has also been pressured over its alleged failure to stem the flow of foreign fighters using its territory to infiltrate across the porous border into Iraq.

The Iraqi government called on Arab governments last year to send in ambassadors to Baghdad, but some countries have been reluctant to do so following abductions and killings of diplomats. Last July, al-Qaida in Iraq abducted the top Egyptian envoy in Baghdad and two Algerian diplomats. It later announced they had been killed. The group also snatched two Moroccan embassy employees in June and said that it had sentenced them to death, though it never stated whether it carried out the sentences.

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