"We don't take them as a threat of military action against Syria," said Bussaina Shaaban, head of the ministry's information department, referring to US warnings for Syria to stay out of the war in neighboring Iraq.

Both US Secretary of State Colin Powell and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld have issued such warnings over the past week, amid mounting Syrian opposition to the US-led war in Iraq.

"Sometimes, the statements are coming from US officials against Syria, sometimes from Israeli officials, ... to target Syria because of its fair and objective stand, but Syria doesn't change its choices," Shaaban told reporters.

"The choice of Syria is to be for peace, with peaceful solutions for every issue in the region," she said, speaking in English.

The foreign ministry official said Syria's relations with the United States would remain strong, despite what she described as Israeli efforts to wreck such ties, and reiterated that Syria's position on the war would remain unchanged.

"Syria has always worked for good relations with the USA, and will always work for good relations. The vision of Syria is that there is no contradiction in interests between the USA and Syria in the region," said Shaaban.

"We believe that this aggression that is taking place against Iraq is in the long run not in the interest of the US people nor in the interest of the

Shaaban however blasted Washington for the civilian casualties in the Iraq war, saying the conflict had to stop immediately.

"If there is a political problem between the US government and Iraqi government, it should be solved without making the Iraqi people pay the price," she said.

"US officials define terrorism to be targeting civilians for political purposes, which exactly applies to what they are doing in Iraq," she added.

"Syria believes the last thing this region needs is a war against innocent civilians."

Rumsfeld on March 28 accused Syria of allowing military supplies to transit across its territory into Iraq, and called this a "hostile act", while Powell later urged Damascus not to support Baghdad.

Responding to a question on whether Damascus was supporting Iraqi President Saddam Hussein or his regime, Shaaban responded that Syria was "supporting the Iraqi civilian people. The Syrian people do not accept killing of civilian innocent people."

"Until now, Syria has been supporting Iraq through political means, the Security Council, meetings with the neighbors of Iraq, with Europeans," she added.

Shaaban said many countries were asking Damascus to allow the transfer of humanitarian aid to Iraq, and Syria was willing to help in this.

Questioned about Syrian support to Arab volunteers wishing to fight in Iraq, Shaaban only said they were coming "from all over the world," and "are very angry of what is happening in Iraq. This war has to stop."

Al-Jazeera television reported last week that a number of Syrians had arrived in Iraq's northern city of Mosul to fight alongside Iraq.

Syrian Foreign Minister Faruq al-Shara on Monday said he hoped US and British forces would be defeated in Iraq.

And President Bashar al-Assad charged in an interview in an Austrian daily that the United States had no real interest in a Middle East peace and instead wanted to "remodel" the region.

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