DAMASCUS (AP) — Syria’s president promised to do what he can to ease tensions in neighbouring Iraq on Sunday during a landmark visit here by Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, just days after the US president accused Syria of backing Iraq’s insurgency.

CAIRO — Moderate Arab governments planned to tell visiting US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice that they will help Washington stabilise Iraq if the US in turn takes more active steps to revive a broad peace initiative between Israel and its Arab neighbours, Arab officials and media said Sunday.

The Iraqi foreign minister called Sunday for the release of five Iranians detained by US forces in what he said was a legitimate mission in northern Iraq, but he stressed that foreign intervention to help insurgents would not be tolerated.