Assad and Mubarak discuss need to seal border with Iraq

President Hosni Mubarak and his counterpart from Damascus, Bashar al-Assad, discussed the need to seal off the border between Syria and Iraq and preserve Iraq's unity here Tuesday. Assad stressed "Syrian efforts to hermetically control the border between Syria and Iraq" in the face of allegations that foreign volunteers have been slipping across to fight US-led forces, said Egyptian presidential spokesman Magued Abdel Fattah.
Assad also said Syria wanted to preserve the unity of its strife-torn neighbour "and not provoke trouble," recalling it was in its own interest to keep Iraq's volatile ethnic mix stable.
He also reiterated Syria was interested in creating the conditions for foreign forces to withdraw from Iraq, the spokesman said.
Assad and Mubarak also expressed similar views on the Palestinian question, saying they saw the "need to support Arab efforts to unify Palestinian ranks and restore stability to the domestic Palestinian scene, as a precondition to restarting the peace process," said Abdel Fattah.