European Union states agreed on Wednesday to demand a firmer commitment from Syria renouncing weapons of mass destruction in return for signing a trade and aid pact with the Middle Eastern state, diplomats said.
The deal among EU ambassadors broke a five-month deadlock on the stalled agreement, just two weeks after US President George W. Bush imposed sanctions on Damascus, accusing it of backing terrorism, seeking WMD and letting militants into Iraq.
The issue highlights transatlantic divergence over whether to engage with or isolate countries such as Syria and Iran.
The United States said it had made known its concerns about Syrian behaviour to the EU ahead of the decision.
EU envoys endorsed more explicit articles on the fight against the spread of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons to be put to Syria to clear the last stumbling block to a deal, a spokesman for the Irish EU presidency said.
Britain, Germany, the Netherlands and Denmark had objected to the original text negotiated by the executive European Commission with Syria last December, saying it fell short of the EU's commitment to make the fight against WMD a major plank in ties with third countries.
Damascus has so far refused to renegotiate the draft accord, arguing there is no reason why the EU should impose tougher conditions on Syria than on other Mediterranean partners such as arch-foe Israel, widely believed to have a big nuclear arsenal.
But EU officials and Middle Eastern diplomats said Syria was likely to accept, since it wanted to show it was not isolated after the US sanctions.
EU officials say the association agreement provides a hook to get Syria to co-operate more against terrorism, as well as to prod political and economic reforms in Damascus.
A US mission spokesman told Reuters: "We continue to have concerns about Syrian behaviour in a number of areas, including support for groups involved in terror and the security of the Syria-Iraq border.
"We have shared our concerns with the highest levels of the Syrian government as well as our partners in the EU."
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