"I'm confident the Syrian government has heard us. I believe it when they say they want to cooperate with us," Bush

FORT HOOD, Texas, April 21 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – U.S. President George W. Bush softened his bellicose rhetoric against Syria late on Sunday, April 20, as two U.S. lawmakers left a meeting with Syrian President Basher al-Assad in Damascus saying they had assurances that Iraq's neighbor would not harbor fleeing war criminals.

"I'm confident the Syrian government has heard us, and I believe it when they say they want to cooperate with us," Agence France-Presse (AFP) quoted Bush as saying while leaving an Easter Sunday church service at this Texas army base.

"Seems like they're beginning to get the message. And when we think there's somebody there ... we, of course, will pass on the name and fully expect the Syrian government to hand the person over," Bush said.

In Damascus, visiting U.S. lawmakers said Assad had assured them that Syria would not shelter any Iraqi officials wanted for war crimes.

"We spoke with Assad on a number of issues in regard to what the U.S. has been alleging," Democrat Representative Nick Rahall of West Virginia told AFP.

"Mr. Assad told us that the Syrians will not provide asylum for any war criminals. Assad said that he is working with the British and other friends of the U.S.A. to resolve these issues," added Rahall, asserting that "Syria is not America's enemy."

Darell Issa, a Republican representative from California Issa told ABC television's "This Week" program that "we got a specific commitment that he (Assad) will not harbor any war criminals, and he will expel any that get into the country."

"We're conveying that back to the United States, and hopefully we can count on him to enforce that promise," the California congressman said.

"Syria has helped the United States in our fight against al-Qaeda," he said, adding that President Assad," is not the same as Saddam Hussein in Iraq and any perception, any trying to package Syria and Iraq together is not a correct understanding of the issue.

Issa said they also asked Syria's government to close the office of Palestinian resistance movements in Damascus, including those of Hizbullah, Hamas and Islamic Jihad.

The two also asked Assad to encourage Lebanon to deploy its own army forces along its border with Israel, instead of allowing Hizbullah there.

Bush Sees North Korea Breakthrough

Syria would not shelter any Iraqi officials wanted for war crimes, Assad

The U.S. president, meanwhile, told reporters that the United States, Japan, South Korea and China together have "a good chance" of convincing North Korea to abandon its nuclear weapons program.

"I believe that all four of us, working together, have a good chance of convincing North Korea to abandon her ambitions to develop a nuclear arsenal," he said, looking ahead to scheduled talks with Pyongyang this week.

Bush, however, did not explicitly confirm that the talks, tentatively set for April 23-25, were still on, but gave a sunny assessment of the volatile situation and singled out China for praise, saying Beijing was now committed to help.

"Now that they're engaged in the process it makes it more likely that's going to occur," said Bush, who has refused allied appeals for one-on-one talks between Washington and Pyongyang.

"The key thing on the North Korea agenda is China is assuming a very important responsibility and acting on then-president Jiang Zemin's pledge to work to keep the Korean peninsula free of nuclear arms," the U.S. leader said.

China was poised to host three-way negotiations in Beijing after contradictory statements from North Korea on whether it was reprocessing fuel rods, enabling it to harvest enough plutonium for a handful of nuclear bombs.

If the talks go ahead, they would see U.S. and North Korean negotiators sit down at the same table for the first time since the nuclear crisis erupted in October of last year.

North Korea's claim on Friday, April 18, signalling it had started reprocessing spent fuel rods for weapons-grade plutonium sparked a storm of controversy and confusion in Washington and among its allies.