By Susan Cornwell

WASHINGTON, Nov 8 (Reuters) - Syria has agreed to allow U.S. officials into the country to process refugees from war-torn Iraq for admission into the United States, a senior State Department official said on Thursday.

The United States in turn has renewed its commitment to provide assistance to Iraqi refugees in Syria, said David Welch, assistant secretary for the Near Eastern Affairs Bureau.

"We do appreciate Syria's decision to renew cooperation with us on our programs to address this humanitarian issue," Welch told the Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee on the Middle East and Africa.

He said there were probably more than 1.4 million Iraqi refugees in Syria. "Until recently Syria has mostly kept its borders open to those coming out of Iraq and has not sent them back," he said. "We're trying to help."

In September, U.S. officials said the United States had only taken in about 1,700 Iraqi refugees. However, they also pledged to start taking in as many as 1,000 a month in new processing centers.

Relations between Washington and Damascus are strained over a host of issues. The Bush administration accuses Syria of allowing militants to cross its borders into Iraq, undermining the democratic process in Lebanon, and backing Palestinian militants.

The U.S. government, facing criticism for delays in processing and admitting Iraqi refugees to the United States, had blamed some of the problem on Syria not issuing visas to U.S. staff to process the refugees.

The agreement with Syria followed a recent trip to Damascus by James Foley, the senior U.S. coordinator for Iraqi refugees, Welch said.

After a period of time in which Syria had not issued visas to U.S. personnel to process U.S. visas for Iraqi refugees, "they (the Syrians) have now issued a handful to DHS (Department of Homeland Security) personnel," he said.

Sectarian fighting and other violence that followed the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq have forced more than 4 million people to leave their homes. More than 2 million people are displaced within Iraq and up to 2.2 million more are believed to be in Syria and Jordan, according to U.N. data.

Critics, including U.S. politicians and top diplomatic officials, have complained that Iraqi refugees faced waits of up to two years because of bureaucratic bottlenecks and rigorous security measures put in place after the Sept. 11 attacks.

The U.N. High Commissioner on Refugees has referred about 10,000 Iraqis and their family members in Jordan, Syria, Egypt, Turkey and Lebanon to the United States for consideration for resettlement. (Editing by David Alexander and Jackie Frank)

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