Condoleezza Rice said her meeting with a top Syrian official differed from that of top Democrats because she limited discussion to Iraq and no photographers were present. “OK, it’s one thing to go to Damascus and to have those pictures that suggest a relationship that doesn’t exist with Syria,” the U.S. secretary of state told CNN on Thursday when asked why her meeting in Egypt this week with Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Moaellem differed from the visit to Syria last month by Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, who met with Syrian President Bashar Assad. “This was really very, very limited to Iraq.” Pelosi delivered a message to Assad from Israel saying that the Jewish state harbored no plans to launch a war against Syria, and also made inquiries about captive Israeli soldiers.
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