UNITED NATIONS - Iraq won't be deterred by insurgent violence but still needs help from the U.S.-led multinational force as it drafts a new constitution and builds a democratic nation, Iraq's foreign minister said Tuesday.
Hoshyar Zebari, addressing the U.N. Security Council, urged Iraq's neighbors, especially Syria, to do more to prevent foreign extremists from crossing into Iraq, where their goal is to undermine the country's new democratic system.
Zebari said Iraq has repeatedly urged its neighbors to prevent terrorists from entering the country and welcomed Syria's recent statements that it had stopped more than 1,000 foreign fighters. But he said it confirmed Iraq's long-held view "that Syria has been one of the main transit routes for foreign terrorists, as well as for remnants of the previous regime" - and he urged Damascus to do more to police its borders.
"We'll do our best," Syria's U.N. Ambassador Fayssal Mekdad told reporters afterwards. "We are ready to cooperate with the present, new Iraqi government to help wherever we can."
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