On al-Sharaa's visit to London

The Kuwaiti daily al-Qabas said on Thursday that the spokesman for the British Foreign Ministry refrained from answering a question asked by the paper on whether there was a Syrian - British consensus concerning Iraq and whether Syria accepts the US and British strikes against Iraqi sites in the two no-fly zones.

The spokesman, the paper added, said: "We have discussed the Iraqi issue in general and means conducive to implementing international legitimacy resolutions."

The paper quoted a well-informed source in London as saying on Thursday that al-Sharaa conveyed to the British foreign secretary that the project to "modernize the Syrian armed forces does not intend to wage or launch any aggression against any country in the region or to get into an arms-race."