ALGIERS: President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad held two hours of talks with his Algerian counterpart Abdelaziz Bouteflika Saturday during a stopover in Algiers on route to New York for the UN General Assembly.
Ahmadinejad received full military honors on his arrival at Algiers airport, where he was received by Bouteflika, an AFP photographer at the scene noted.
The Algerian leader was accompanied by Prime Minister Ahmed Ouyahia and Foreign Minister Mourad Medelci.
The two leaders held two hours of talks at the airport’s VIP section.
According to the Algerian news agency APS, Bouteflika was accompanied by Ouyahia, Medelci and the speaker of parliament Abdelaziz Ziari; with Ahmadinejad was Iran’s Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki.
Following the talks, Ahmadinejad described relations between the two countries as "very good and in full development."
The two leaders have met several times in the past including Ahmadinejad’s state visit to Algeria in January 2009.
Algerian press reports suggested that Algeria’s ambassador to Tehran has had talks with Iran’s Trade Minister Mehdi Qazanfari about developing trade — and even a free trade accord — between the two countries.
Iran is currently suffering under the international, UN-approved economic sanctions imposed on it because of its nuclear power programme, which critics fear could have a military component.
Ahmadinejad flew into Algiers from Syria’s Damascus airport, where he had had a meeting with President Bashar al-Assad.
He is due in New York where from Monday to Wednesday and he is to attend the UN General Assembly, a forum he has used in past years to blast arch-foe Israel.
Meanwhile, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Saturday that resistance to the West is on the rise across the Middle East, after meeting his Syrian counterpart Bashar al-Assad.
Their brief meeting at Damascus airport in the presence of Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem came just two days after US President Barack Obama’s special envoy sought support in Damascus for Washington’s latest peace push.
"The front of resistance is increasing in the region, (and) the people of the region support the policy" pursued by the Iranian and Syrian governments, Ahmadinejad said.
"We have achieved a great victory because we were able to defeat the enemy plans to change" the political map of the Middle East, the Iranian hardliner told reporters before departing the Syrian capital.
Before leaving Tehran, he had told reporters that Iran’s relations with Syria were "solid and strategic with a unified view on all issues."
On Thursday, US Middle East envoy George Mitchell said in Damascus that Washington was interested in a comprehensive resolution of the regional conflict that also included peace between Syria and Israel.
Mitchell said that for Washington a Middle East peace deal meant an "agreement between Israel and the Palestinians, between Israel and Syria and between Israel and Lebanon and the full normalization of relations between Israel and its neighbors."
"There are some who are determined to disrupt this process. But we are determined to see it through," the US envoy stressed.
Despite a 1949 armistice agreement, Syria and Israel remain technically in a state of war.
The Golan Heights has been at the core of the Syrian-Israeli conflict since it was seized by the Jewish state in the 1967 Six-Day War and annexed in 1981 in a move not recognized by the international community.
Ahmadinejad last visited Syria in February, soon after US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton underlined Washington’s desire to see Syria move away from Iran.
Ahmadinejad and Assad responded by signing a visa-scrapping accord that signaled even closer ties.
An Iranian diplomatic source said earlier on Saturday that during their meeting, Ahmadinejad and Assad reaffirmed their strong ties and "commitment to continue consultations… in areas of interest."
They expressed the need "to raise the level of economic cooperation, particularly in the fields of oil, gas, railways and tourism," according to Syria’s official SANA news agency.
They also stressed the importance of Iraqi political groups finding a way soon to form a coalition, following inconclusive March 7 parliamentary elections, that would ensure the country’s unity, SANA said.
Syrian political analyst Sami Mubayed noted the "high level of coordination" between Syria and Iran on key regional issues, namely Iraq and the Palestinian-Israeli peace process.
"No one can separate the two allies… (and) there is no valid reason to break up their relationship," Mubayed told AFP.
"The United States cannot impose their friends or allies on countries in the region," he added, in an apparent reference to key US ally Israel.
Ahmadinejad was in Syria briefly en route for Algeria and the United States, where he will attend next week’s UN General Assembly meeting, according to Iranian state media.
