Damascus - Veteran French actress Catherine Deneuve said in Damascus on Tuesday that she believes that cinema can help in spreading love and peace among people all over the world.

"The cinema is the best way to know the other and accept differences because knowing the other through films helps opening up new horizons," Deneuve told reporters during the 16th International Damascus Film Festival.

Damascus - Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebary arrived in Damascus on Tuesday in the first visit by an Iraqi official since the US cross-border attack on the Syrian village of Abu Kamal in late October.

The visit comes as "a good will gesture" from the Iraqi government to show its concern to maintain brotherly relations with Syria, Ahmad al-Saad, the press attache of the Iraqi embassy in Damascus told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.

Damascus - Syria and Lebanon agreed on Monday to form a committee to fight terrorism and control its borders, days after Syria blamed suspects linked to a Lebanese group with a bomb attack in Damascus.

The decision came during a visit of Lebanese Minister of Interior Zaid Baroud to Damascus, the first by an interior minister since the 2005 assassination of former Lebanese prime minster Rafik Hariri, which some groups in Lebanon blame on Syria.

Beirut - Fatah al-Islam, an al-Qaeda-linked militant movement, on Monday denied any links with the September 27 bomb attack in the Syrian capital that killed 17 people.

"We deny any involvement in the Damascus blast ... and the allegations which were shown on (Syrian) television," Fatah al-Islam said in a statement faxed to the media in Beirut.

The statement followed allegations by alleged Fatah al-Islam members in a 40-minute television report aired on state-run television in Syria last week.

Damascus - Syrian President Bashar 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-Bashar said, Iraq would become "a base for attacks on its neighbours."

Iran has also indicated its opposition to the deal, calling it an "assault on the sovereignty of Iraq."

Damascus - Syrian President Bashar al-Assad called into question the seriousness of Israel's efforts to make peace in the Middle East on Sunday, saying the country must prove its intentions by action.

Speaking at a gathering of Arab parliamentarians in Damascus, al- Assad said that Israel's current participation in indirect talks with Syria that are being mediated by Turkey are "just a tactic, not a strategic decision for peace."

Syria and Israel have recently held four rounds of talks through Turkish intermediaries, without significant progress.