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DAMASCUS - A Syrian-Iranian summit meeting has got underway in Damascus, with Syrian president Bashar Al-Assad and his Iranian counterpart Mahmoud Ahmadinejad having set in motion talks, reports the official Syrian press agency SANA.

The meeting between Assad and Ahmadinejad has begun a few hours after Washington, by way of US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, urged Damascus to "begin distancing itself" from Iran. Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Al-Muallim had instead said on Saturday that Damascus intended to get involved in "constructive dialogue" between Iran and the United States in order to try and find a diplomatic agreement on the nuclear issue, reiterating however Syriàs opposition to the inflicting of new sanctions on Iran.

The Iranian president's last visit to Damascus had been in May 2009. For the past 30 years, Syria and Iran have been linked by a close strategic-military alliance, and both support the Lebanese Shia movement Hezbollah and radical Palestinian factions as a part of their anti-Israeli stance.

In the context of the political and diplomatic thaw between the United States and Syria, sealed by the return of a US ambassador to Damascus after a five-year absence, Clinton said yesterday evening that during a recent visit to the Syrian capital by US Deputy Secretary of State William Burns, the US had "indicated to Syrians the need for greater cooperation with Iraq, an end to interference in Lebanon and weapons supply to Hezbollah, as well as a resumption in Israeli-Palestinian talks."(ANSAmed).

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