AFP - Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and Iran's interim Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi agreed on Monday that the troubles of the Middle East should be solved internally by the region's countries, the official SANA news agency reported.
Salehi arrived in Damascus on Sunday to discuss the Lebanese political crisis with Syrian officials.
The two men discussed "the latest regional developments" and international efforts to "find solutions to challenges facing countries of the region," SANA said after the meeting.
SANA reported Assad and Salehi emphasised "the importance that solutions come from inside these countries according to their peoples' interests to help maintain their security and stability".
External efforts to mediate Lebanon's political quagmire have yielded little, with Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Qatar all failing.
A national unity government led by Western-backed caretaker prime minister Saad Hariri collapsed on January 12 when 11 ministers from the Syrian- and Iranian-backed Hezbollah and its allies resigned.
The walkout capped a long-running dispute over a UN-backed investigation into the 2005 assassination of former premier Rafiq Hariri, the incumbent's father.
Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah has said he expects the Netherlands-based Special Tribunal for Lebanon to implicate high-ranking members of his militant movement in the Hariri murder and has warned of grave repercussions.
Nasrallah has vowed to include all parties in a Hezbollah-led government, but both he and Hariri refuse to serve under each other.
Former prime minister Najib Mikati has put himself forward as a compromise candidate to try to form a government.
Assad and Salehi said they were "satisfied" with the formation of a unity government in Iraq, "stressing the importance of expanding the dialogue to all Iraqi" parties, SANA reported.
The meeting also addressed "ways to strengthen scientific and technological cooperation between Syria and Iran".
On Sunday night, Salehi held talks with his Syrian counterpart Walid Muallem.
He then met the exiled leader of Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas, Khaled Meshaal, Palestinian sources said.
The secretary general of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command (PFLP-GC), Ahmed Jibril, and a representative of Islamic Jihad, Ziad Nakhal, also attended the meeting, the sources said.
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