DAMASCUS (AFP) — Foreign Secretary David Miliband stressed Syria's importance in bringing stability to the Middle East after talks on Tuesday with President Bashar al-Assad.
In the first visit to Syria by a British top diplomat since 2001, Miliband also praised the establishment of diplomatic relations between Syria and neighbouring Lebanon.
"Syria has the opportunity to play a constructive role in many aspects of peace in the region," Miliband said during a news conference with Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem.
"There have been important constructive steps over the last 18 months ... in respect of relations with Lebanon but also some other" issues, he said.
Miliband said he and Assad had discussed efforts to forge peace in the Middle East and expressed to him Britain's satisfaction over Syria's establishment of ties with Lebanon and Iraq.
In October, Syria and Lebanon formally established diplomatic ties for the first time since they both became independent 60 years ago.
The move turned a page in relations between Lebanon and Syria, which dominated its tiny neighbour for nearly three decades until it pulled its troops out in April 2005.
The withdrawal came two months after the murder in Beirut of Lebanon's former premier Rafiq Hariri. Damascus, widely blamed for the assassination, has denied any involvement.
Miliband, who arrived in Damascus on Monday, is the first high-level British official to visit Syria since the Hariri murder.
He also called on Syria to keep up the indirect peace talks with Israel that were launched under Turkish mediation in May. "We support the process and we wish good luck to those who are engaged in those discussions."
On Monday, he told the BBC that Syria "can be a force for stability or it can be a force for instability" in the region.
For his part, Muallem said Syria wanted "to take advantage of the good ties that the West has with Israel in order to achieve a global peace" in the Middle East.
On the Palestinian situation, Miliband, who visited Israel and the Palestinian territories before travelling to Damascus, said "Palestinian disunity and Hamas violence hurt the cause of Syria."
"The only route to a comprehensive peace is (through) politics," he added.
Syria is home to Khaled Meshaal, the exiled leader of the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas, which seized power in Gaza in June 2007 after routing the secular Fatah faction of Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas.
Last week Hamas boycotted reconciliation talks sponsored by Egypt to protest the detention of hundreds of its members by Abbas's security forces.
Visiting Ramallah on the West Bank on Monday, Miliband urged Israelis and the Palestinians to maintain a Gaza truce, which has been rattled by a flare-up of violence.
On Tuesday, he said in Syria that "a Palestinian state... offers the route to justice for Palestinians" and that it must ensure Israel's security.
Tuesday night, he travelled on to Lebanon, the last stop on his Middle East swing, for talks with leaders there.
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