Syria agrees to patrol border

The United States and Iraq’s interim government have reached an agreement with Syria on ways to patrol its porous border with Iraq, and it’s now up to Damascus to begin deploying forces.

Although joint patrols are not planned at this stage, the officials said constant communication and cooperation between Iraqi and U.S.-led coalition forces on one side of the border and Syrian troops on the other are essential for the effort to succeed.

“We have had, I think, positive meetings in terms of trying to work out those kinds of arrangements, and now it’s the moment that actual deployments and policing and efforts have to be undertaken,” State Department spokesman Richard Boucher told reporters earlier this week.

He noted that decisions have already been made on both the political and military level during meetings in Damascus among U.S., Iraqi and Syrian delegations in recent weeks.

“In terms of the actual sort of deployment of people and the instructions to their people, that’s something for the Syrian government to take care of, for them to do their part in this whole enterprise,” Mr. Boucher said.

“Our desire now is to see the Syrians adopt a proactive attitude there and to patrol the border … and to communicate with people on the other side — with the Iraqis especially — in order that they jointly take care of problems that might exist there,” he said.

Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, whose meeting with Syrian Foreign Minister Farouk al-Sharaa in New York last month began to break the ice between Washington and Damascus, said that spirit continued during the recent visits to Syria by two U.S. delegations.

“In these meetings, they have been more forthcoming than they have been in previous meetings, and there has been a new seriousness of purpose in these discussions. But discussions are not action,” Mr. Powell told Al Hurra, the U.S.-financed Arab-language TV network, on Tuesday.

“We measure results by action, not discussion,” he said.

“It is a very porous border,” he said. “I’m not sure it will ever be totally sealed, but we can do more than we are doing now, and we hope that this new attitude on the part of the Syrians will produce results.”

At the same time, the United States remains critical of Syria’s presence in Lebanon.

Yesterday, it circulated, along with France, a draft U.N. Security Council resolution aimed at putting fresh pressure on Damascus to pull its 17,000 troops out of Lebanon.

The document, which follows up on a Sept. 2 resolution passed by the council but ignored by Syria, asks U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan to report on the issue every three months.

Washington and Paris introduced the measure after they failed last week to persuade Islamic nations Pakistan and Algeria to support a council statement welcoming a report on Syria from Mr. Annan. The report said that Syria had not withdrawn its forces from Lebanon or given a timetable for withdrawal.

Syria has maintained political control over Lebanon since it intervened, at Beirut’s request, to quell a civil war in 1976.

Meanwhile, the state-owned Commercial Bank of Syria was reported to be holding $261 million worth of frozen funds belonging to the Iraqi government.

Syria’s official news agency said the bank was willing to return the money in principle, but had reservations about handing it to U.S. authorities.

The bank’s director-general, Duraid Dergham, reportedly said at a banking conference in Beirut that an Iraqi delegation would visit Damascus soon to verify records.

“Returning the funds to Iraq is a rightful entitlement for the Iraqi side,” Mr. Dergham said. “But at the same time, there are contracts and claims by the Syrian public and private sectors that carried out contracts in Iraq during the war.”

• This article is based in part on wire service reports.