Syria pledged Sunday it will do all it can to stop infiltration through its border with Iraq. Syrian Foreign Minister Farouk al-Sharaa said during a short visit to Cairo to discuss the deteriorating situation in Iraq that a conference to be held in Egypt later this month will help stabilize Syria's war-torn neighbor. "We are with Iraq's security and with halting this cross-border infiltration into Iraq," al-Sharaa told reporters after his meeting with President Hosni Mubarak. Middle East states and the powerful Group of Eight industrial nations are expected to throw their support behind the Iraqi interim government's efforts toward stability at a global conference scheduled Nov. 22-23 in the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheik. China, the United Nations, the Arab League, the Organization of Islamic Conference and the European Union also will participate. Al-Sharaa said Iraq's interior minister, Falah Naqib, was due in Damascus soon to sign an agreement on cooperating to control the porous border. On other issues, al-Sharaa said he and Mubarak discussed the situation in the Palestinian territories in view of Yasser Arafat's grave illness. He called on rival Palestinian factions to pull together. "National unity is the key to achieving Palestinian rights and national consensus is essential to regaining the occupied territories," al-Sharaa said.
