run news agency says the Syrian government has named an ambassador to Iraq, the first to fill the post since the 1980s. SANA says Nawaf Fares was sworn in Tuesday before Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad. Fares has been the governor of Syria's southeastern province of Quneitra. Iraq has not yet named an ambassador to Damascus. Syria and Iraq restored diplomatic relations in November 2006, ending a 24-year break that followed charges by the Damascus government that Iraq incited riots in Syria in 1982 by members of the banned Muslim Brotherhood. But relations between Syria and neighboring Iraq remain tense, with the US-backed Iraqi government accusing Syria of allowing anti-US rebels to infiltrate the borders. Iraqi officials have made it clear that there will be no progress on economic cooperation, including an oil pipeline, unless Syria shows what Baghdad describes as seriousness in stopping the alleged infiltration. Several Arab governments named ambassadors to Iraq recently after the United States criticized them for acting slowly on normalizing relations with the Shiite-led government in Baghdad. Syria joins the United Arab Emirates, Jordan, Bahrain and Kuwait in naming ambassadors to Iraq, but the Syrian news agency did not say when Fares will travel to Baghdad.
