The Iraqi Foreign Ministry has released a statement saying that Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari has been in talks with his Syrian counterpart over the past week in an attempt to defuse the growing tensions between the two countries since last Sunday’s US raid.

The Iraqi government does not appear to have been directly involved in the strike, which killed eight Syrians, but government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh’s post-raid comments about the target led the Syrian cabinet to publicly denounce him for attempting to justify the strike. Immediately after the strike the Syrian government also called on the Iraqis to investigate the attack, which was launched from Iraqi soil.

Since then the Iraqi government has condemned the US attack, and has sought an amendment to the Status of Forces Agreement with the US which would explicitly ban American forces from using Iraqi territory in attacks on any of their neighbors.

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