DAMASCUS, Syria, Sept. 4 (UPI) -- Syrian President Bashar Assad held talks Saturday with U.S. Congressman Darrell Issa (R, Cal.) on future relations between the two countries.
The official Syrian news agency, SANA, said talks also focused on Iraq, the Middle East peace process, terrorism and the "American vision for the conditions in the region."
SANA quoted Assad as saying it was "important to achieve stability and security," adding that his country was working to that end.
The meeting with Issa came after the Syrian president met the chief of the Lebanese army, Gen. Michel Suleiman, the first between the two following a U.N. Security Council resolution adopted on Thursday calling on foreign forces to withdraw from Lebanon and disarming the Lebanese militias.
Meanwhile Syrian Information Minister Ahmad al-Hassan described the international resolution as part of "settling scores with Syria and Lebanon for their opposition to the war on Iraq."
He said it was a form of pressure on the two neighboring countries "aimed at disengaging the Syrian-Lebanese links."
The minister, whose country has 16,000 troops in Lebanon, insisted the resolution was also aimed at "accepting the Israeli (peace) settlement according to its own conditions and to see the American occupation of Iraq as a consolidation of freedom and democracy."
