US Secretary of State Colin Powell has warned Syria and Iran to stop backing "terrorists".
"It is now time for the entire international community to step up and insist that Iran end its support for terrorists, including groups violently opposed to Israel and to the Middle East peace process," Mr Powell said in Washington.
"Tehran must stop pursuing weapons of mass destruction and the means to deliver them," Mr Powell told the annual policy conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), a powerful Jewish lobby group.
Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom, who is scheduled to hold talks with Mr Powell later today, also attended.
"Syria now faces a critical choice," Mr Powell continued. "Syria can continue direct support for terrorist groups and the dying regime of Saddam Hussein, or it can embark on a different and more hopeful course. Either way, Syria bears the responsibility for its choices, and for the consequences".
Washington considers both Syria and Iran state sponsors of terrorism. Iran and Syria deny the charges.
Mr Powell's warnings came two days after Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld told Iran and Syria not to interfere in the war on Iraq.
He accused Tehran of allowing hundreds of Iran-based fighters of Iraq's Shiite Muslim opposition to cross the Iraqi border in defiance of US calls for them to stay out. He also said the US has "information of shipments of military supplies crossing the border from Syria into Iraq".
The deliveries, which included night vision goggles, "pose a direct threat to the lives of coalition forces," Mr Rumsfeld said. "We consider such trafficking as hostile acts and will hold the Syrian government accountable for such shipments".
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad had said he hoped US forces would fail to oust Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein and predicted that if they did, Washington and London would be faced by a "popular resistance" that would prevent them controlling the country.
AFP