Syrian PM says regional countries should join forces against US: report

ANKARA, July 28 (AFP) - Syrian Prime Minister Mustapha Miro said in remarks published Monday that regional countries such as Turkey, Iran and Syria should strengthen their ties in order to resist US efforts to reshape the Middle East. "The whole world knows about America's policy to establish a new order in the Middle East," Miro told the the mass-circulation Turkish daily Sabah in Damascus on the eve of a visit to Ankara. "Therefore I think Turkey, Syria and Iran as well as other countries need to act more and more together because if we stay alone it becomes easier to do what has been done to Iraq," he was quoted as saying. The United States — as the current rulers of Iraq — are a neighbor "at least as bad as Saddam Hussein," said the Syrian leader, whose country Washington accuses of harboring terrorists and weapons of mass destruction. "Our common wish is that the occupation ends as soon as possible and America leaves the region as soon as possible," he was quoted as saying. Turkey will welcome Miro on Tuesday for talks on boosting bilateral cooperation amid warnings from Washington that Ankara should toe the US line in relations with its southern neighbor. Turkey's relations with both Syria and Iran — often tense in the past — have warmed in the wake of the US-led war in Iraq. The three neighbors share concerns that any move towards self-rule by the Kurds in northern Iraq could spark unrest among their own Kurdish minorities. But the United States has warned Turkey, a long-standing Muslim ally and a NATO partner, that cooperation with Syria and Iran should be limited. "I think anything that Turkey does with Syria or does with Iran should fit into an overall policy with us, of getting those countries to change their bad behavior," US Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz said in an interview with a Turkish television in May. Miro's talks here will take place in the wake of Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul's visit to Washington last week, in which the two NATO allies sought to improve their ties, at an all-time low following Ankara's failure to back the war in Iraq and persisting tensions over Kurdish-held northern Iraq.