.- The Prime Ministers and agreed Saturday to increase cooperation in economy and security during a meeting focused on improving bilateral relations, soured by allegations from Baghdad that the Syrians gave asylum to Iraqi insurgents. Syrian Prime Minister Naji al-Otari arrived Saturday to visit two days less than a month to form a new government Iraq, ending the political negotiations started in March.The official Syrian news agency al-Otari congratulated Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki for the formation of his government. Iraqi government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said the first round of talks were positive. Both leaders agreed that the Iraqis may enter Syria without a visa and established plans to enhance cooperation in security, oil exploration, trade and electricity, which the Syrians sold to the Iraqis, said al-Dabbagh.
Relations between Arab governments have had difficulties for decades. Broke diplomatic relations in 1980 when they were ruled by rival factions of the Baath Party. Syria supported Iran in its 8-year war against Iraq under Saddam Hussein's dictatorship, which ended in 1988. Syria, mostly Sunni, and Iraq, where Shiites predominate, decided in 2006 to restore official relations and al-Otari visited Baghdad in April 2009, the first visit by a Syrian head of government since the Allied invasion led by U.S.
overthrew Saddam in 2003. However, both countries withdrew its ambassadors in August 2009 after suicide bombers detonated their explosive charges in the ministries of Foreign Affairs and Finance, killing over 100 people. Iraq blamed the attacks on insurgents who lived in Syria, which Damascus denies.
The attacks were claimed by the Islamic State of Iraq, a group of al-Qaida. Al-Maliki visited Syria in October, two months before getting the new Iraqi government formed.
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