AMMAN - US President George W. Bush told King Abdullah II of Jordan on Wednesday the time was not ripe for dialogue with Syria, which would only see encouragement for its interference in Lebanon, a White House official said here.

The king for his part told the president at a dinner at Amman’s Raghadan Palace that a solution to the Palestinian problem must be found to reduce tensions in the Middle East, according to a Royal Palace statement.

“The two main topics of the discussions were the situation in Lebanon and Syria’s role in it, and the Israeli-Palestinian situation,” said the White House official who asked not to be named.

Neighbouring Iraq was also brought up during the dinner, attended by colleagues of the two leaders including US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, “but it really was not the focus,” the official said.

“There was a lot of concern expressed about the role that Syria is playing in Lebanon and its failure to heed UN Security Council Resolutions 1559 and 1701,” he went on.

Those resolutions dating respectively from September 2004 and August 2005 basically affirmed Lebanon’s sovereignty over its territory.

“The president made clear his view that this is not the time for engagement with Syria because the Syrian government always seems to see any such form of engagement as a gesture of approval, or as a way of getting off the hook for actions that it is taking,” the official said.

There have been growing calls in the United States and abroad for Bush to accept direct discussions with his administration’s two bugbears in the region, Syria and Iran, to contribute to restoring stability in their neighbour Iraq.  -AFP