Jalal Talabani is in Damascus for talks with Bashar Al-Assad.

It is the first meeting between the Presidents of Syria and Iraq for 25 years, and it comes amid a warming of relations between the two countries.

But some Iraqi ministers have expressed their fears that Bush is trying to divide the two countries. Bush rejected the Baker Report which advised him to talk to Syria, instead he launched into a tough speech this week when he came close to threatening military action against Syria. Many members of Bush's own party condemned him for refusing to talk to Syria.

"The timing may seem a little tricky after what Bush said," Mahmoud Othman, a prominent Iraqi politician with close ties to Talabani, told Associated Press. "But our interests differ from those of the United States. The enmity between the United States and Syria and Iran doesn't benefit the situation in Iraq."

Bashar and Jalal are talking about commerical and security issues.