Mubarak did not speak to the media after his talks with Bashar and later arrived in Bahrain for talks with King Hamad ibn Isa Al-Khalifa and was due to travel to the United Arab Emirates on Monday and meet with UAE President Sheikh Zayed ibn Sultan Al-Nahayan.

At Ft. Hood, Texas, US President George W. Bush said there were “positive signs” Syria was responding to US calls for the country to deny sanctuary to fleeing members of Saddam Hussein’s administration in Iraq.

“There’s some positive signs. They’re getting the message that they should not harbor Baath Party officials, high ranking Iraqi officials,” Bush told reporters after he attended Easter services at Ft. Hood.

But in an interview published yesterday, US Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage said Syria will face “sanctions” if it continued to support extremist movements such as Lebanon’s Hezbollah and the Palestinian group Islamic Jihad.

“If Syria decides to maintain its support for terrorism, particularly of Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad in Palestine, we will be forced to impose sanctions and other political measures on it,” Armitage told the Al-Khaleej daily.

Armitage did not spell out what the “sanctions” would include.

“Syria is at a crossroads,” he said. “Many things have changed and I hope President (Bashar) Assad takes that into consideration.”

Armitage stressed that Syria’s neighbors were “friends” of the United States, mentioning Israel, Jordan and Turkey and also Iraq, where US-led forces ousted Saddam Hussein from power this month.

Syria has been among the most vociferous opponents of the war in Iraq.

In Damascus, US Congressman Darrell Issa told Reuters after a two-hour meeting with Bashar that Syria wanted a positive dialogue with the United States. “We have many positive messages to Washington,” said Issa. “Assad went out of his way in being positive.”

Issa and Rep. Nick Rahall, a West Virginia Democrat, were the first US politicians to meet Assad since the recent escalation of US-Syrian tensions. In an interview with the Associated Press, they described Bashar as a calm man eager to address US concerns raised since the war on Iraq ended earlier this month.

“It’s not an angry attitude with which he approaches these issues, but one of: ‘Hey, let’s discuss them face-to-face,”’ said Rahall.

“He shares concerns and interests with America in this part of the world and wants to pursue in the right direction what we all want to see — peace, a nuclear and chemical weapons-free area and the advancement of the peace process,” Rahall said.

The congressmen’s two-hour meeting with Bashar came ahead of a trip that US Secretary of State Colin Powell plans to the region, including Syria.

Issa said the congressmen’s trip was aimed at trying to “move a positive dialogue and to promote...a better engagement between Secretary Powell” and the Syrians.

“We were doing what we can to create the opportunity for the kind of dialogue that leads to positive change in behavior on both sides,” Issa said.

Rahall said he believed tensions would “deescalate” after Powell’s trip and “that we will see the mutual interest of both countries benefit from it.”