European Spies Contacted Bashar Assad To Discuss Security

DUBAI (Reuters) - The intelligence services of some Western countries opposed to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad have visited Damascus to discuss security cooperation with his government, Syria's deputy foreign minister said in remarks broadcast on Wednesday.

"I will not specify (which countries) but many of them have visited Damascus, yes," the deputy minister, Faisal Mekdad, said in an interview with the BBC.

Maria Abi-Habib of The Wall Street Journal reports, Western and Middle Eastern officials, that Western spies have contacted the regime.

Mekdad said that the contacts appeared to show a rift between the political and security authorities in some countries opposed to Assad.

Western powers have supported the opposition with rhetoric but have backed away from material aid as al Qaeda-linked groups take advantage of a power vacuum in rebel-held regions.

Western countries are worried about the presence in rebel ranks of foreign Islamist militants who have traveled to Syria to join a near three-year-old struggle to topple Assad.

"Frankly speaking the spirit has changed," Mekdad added.

"When these countries ask us for security cooperation, then it seems to me there is a schism between the political and security leaderships."

Asked if he was confirming that British intelligence had been in contact with Syria, he declined a direct reply.

"I am saying that many of these countries have contacted us to coordinate security measures," he added.

Syria plunged into civil war after an uprising against four decades of Assad family rule erupted in March 2011 and descended into an armed insurgency after the army cracked down on protests.

(Reporting by William Maclean and Rania El Gamal, Editing by Eric Walsh)