Syria rejects US accusations of meddling in Iraqi affairs

Syria on Thursday rejected accusations by US President George W. Bush and some Iraqi officials of meddling in Iraqi affairs as "groundless," the official SANA news agency reported.

"We reject all the accusations, for they are groundless. The repetition of these invented accusations, by certain people, shows the will to hide the real reasons behind the deterioration of the situation in Iraq," a Syrian Foreign Ministry official was quoted as saying.

The official did not specifically name Bush, who warned both Syria and Iran on Wednesday that meddling in Iraq's internal affairs "is not in their interests" at the end of a meeting with Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi.

Iraqi Defense Minister Hazim Shaalan al-Khuzaei has accused Syria and Iran of orchestrating attacks in Iraq, branding Tehran in particular as the "most dangerous enemy of Iraq."

"Syria is using all its capacities to control the frontier, ... (and) is prepared to cooperate with the interim Iraqi government to this end and concerning other security questions," the Syrian official said.

A free, sovereign and united country "is in the interests of Iraq, Syria and the whole region" of the Middle East, he said.

The United States imposed economic sanctions on Damascus in May on charges of supporting terrorism and doing too little to stop border infiltrations into Iraq.

But US Secretary of State Colin Powell said in September that Damascus had been showing a "positive" attitude in securing its border with Iraq and keeping out anti-US fighters.