By Alaa Shahine

CAIRO, March 13 (Reuters) - Syria played down on Tuesday the significance of having taken part in talks with the United States on Iraq, saying removal of mutual suspicion with Washington would take time.

U.S. officials and delegates from Iraq's regional neighbours met in Baghdad last week in what President George W. Bush called a good start provided countries like Syria and Iran made good on promises to help end the violence in Iraq.

Some Arab analysts saw the meeting as a sign a U.S. campaign to isolate Syria was nearing its end. But Syrian Vice President Farouq al-Shara was cautious in remarks to reporters in Cairo.

"This is just a start. And we cannot predict how this start would end but we hope the end and the coming steps will be positive and constructive," he said after talks with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.

"Warming relations need deep talks and a long time for mutual doubts to be removed. That is why we should not pin huge importance on what happened in Baghdad, but we must not ignore it either because it has brought the dialogue back."

The Bush administration accuses Damascus and its ally Iran of helping insurgents in Iraq and wants Syria to control its border with its eastern neighbour to stop the flow of fighters.

Syria, which opposed the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, denies the charges and blames the United States for not helping to control the porous border.

European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana will visit Damascus on Wednesday. Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi told Syrian President Bashar al-Assad on Tuesday the visit was a good opportunity to help end Syria's isolation in the West.

"This is a significant chance to work for resumed dialogue between Syria and the European Union and for better cooperation to reduce tension in various trouble spots in the Middle East," Prodi's office quoted him as telling Assad.

On Monday, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Ellen Sauerbrey held talks with a senior Syrian diplomat on how Damascus was coping with a flood of Iraqi refugees, the first such talks in the Syrian capital for more than two years.

The State Department called the meeting a "useful exchange of views" and said Sauerbrey had urged Damascus to continue protecting and aiding the refugees.

But Syrian Ambassador to London Sami Khiyami attacked U.S. policy in the Middle East, saying Washington's strategy in the region "smells of oil and domination". He put the onus on the United States to build on the results of the Baghdad meeting.

"The U.S. must help create a climate of understanding between the West and the Arabs," he wrote in Britain's Guardian newspaper. (Additional reporting by Stephen Brown in Rome)

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