Damascus - Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari told his Syrian counterpart Wednesday that Iraq will not be a base for raids on Syria and will soon appoint an Iraqi envoy to Syria.

Zebari, who arrived in Damascus on Tuesday, met with Syrian foreign minister Walid al-Muallem. Zebari delivered a letter from Nuri al-Maliki to the Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

The letter added that the Iraqi government had not been aware of the US raid the Syrian village of Abu Kamal.

This is the first visit by an Iraqi official since the US cross-border attack on Syria in late October.

The visit comes as "a good will gesture" from the Iraqi government to show its concern in maintaining brotherly relations with Syria.

The late October attack left seven people dead. The US government has not officially commented on the US commando operation, but unofficial accounts say the target was an al-Qaeda militant.

Following the attack, a Syrian government spokesman in Damascus said that the Iraqi government also bore responsibility for the incident, since the attack was launched from its territory.

Against this backdrop, al-Assad on Sunday spoke out against the signing of the US-Iraqi security pact, saying the presence of US troops in Iraq posed a threat to stability in the region.

"The presence of occupation forces constitutes a permanent threat to Iraq's neighbours," al-Assad told Arab parliamentarians.

The security deal being negotiated between Baghdad and Washington outlines the future of US troops in Iraq after a United Nations mandate expires at the end of this year.

Under the deal, al-Assad had said, Iraq would become "a base for attacks on its neighbours." (dpa)