The US has invited Syria to attend an American-sponsored Middle East peace conference as President George Bush on Monday embarked on a round of talks to push the initiative.

The US secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, said that key Arab states, including Syria, would be invited to Mr Bush’s planned conference and she hoped they would accept the proposal.

The attendance of Syria and Saudi Arabia, neither of which has diplomatic relations with Israel, has been a big question mark of the conference.

Riyadh, which carries particular weight in the Arab world, has voiced scepticism about such a meeting unless it delivers concrete results — a view shared by the Palestinian leadership.

The Arab League has also told the French Foreign Minister, Bernard Kouchner, that it would not attend the conference without a moratorium on settlements. Following a dinner attended by Arab ministers and the Middle East peace quartet — the US, the EU, the UN and Russia — Saudi Foreign Minister, Saud al-Faisal, on Sunday said his country had not yet decided whether to accept any invitation.

“We’ve got some answers but we still have some questions which we hope to be answered,” he told reporters.
Asked specifically if Saudi Arabia would attend the conference, he said: “We still need some more answers”.

Syria’s participation poses its own problems after Israel’s recent mystery raid on suspected nuclear materials in Syria. But apart from a letter of complaint to the UN, the Damascus reaction has been low-key, prompting speculation that Israel and Syria are both trying to play down the incident.

Blackwater must pay: Maliki
The Iraqi Prime Minister, Nuri al-Maliki, showed an unexpected streak of stubbornness on Monday in his stand-off with the US over the Blackwater shootings, insisting that action has to be taken against the private security firm, The Guardian reports from Washington.

In an interview, Mr Maliki, who is in New York for the United Nations general assembly, said Blackwater posed “a serious challenge to the sovereignty of Iraq and cannot be accepted”.

His comments were at odds with a briefing of journalists by an Iraqi official in Baghdad who said the expulsion of Blackwater, which has 1,000 staff in the country and provides protection for the US Ambassador and other US diplomats, would leave a security vacuum.

Blackwater guards are alleged to have shot 11 civilians in Baghdad last Sunday while protecting a US diplomatic convoy. Blackwater said they were returning fire, while the Iraqi government insisted they opened fire first.