Blair told the House of Commons -- the lower house of parliament -- that Britain and the United States had no plans to invade Syria despite US charges that senior Iraqi regime figures were taking refuge in the country.

"I spoke with President Bashar al-Assad over the weekend and he assured me that they would interdict anybody who's crossing over the border from Iraq into Syria," Blair said.

"I believe they are doing that," he added.

Blair, who travels Tuesday to Germany to meet Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder before an EU summit in Athens on Wednesday, also insisted repeatedly there were "no plans whatever to invade Syria."

Britain's minister for Middle East affairs Mike O'Brien was in Damascus on Monday, meeting Assad who in December made the first official visit to London ever by a Syrian leader.

The prime minister said the Iraq war that began on March 20 was still not over despite the fall of the northern city of Tikrit, the power base of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.

Blair said he wanted to "emphasize that the conflict in Iraq is not yet over," as he warned of "tough times ahead, fighting still to do."

He said "foreign irregular forces ... from different parts of the world" have been clashing with US troops in the Iraqi capital Baghdad.

"There are people from several different countries in the region; there are also people from Chechnya ... Some of those who are carrying on the fighting ... have been carrying on the looting, too."

US tanks and troops took control of Tikrit on Monday as coalition forces stepped up efforts to restore order and services in other cities they have captured.

"Whatever the problems following Saddam's collapse -- and in the short term they are bound to be serious -- let no one be in any doubt, Iraq is a better place without Saddam," Blair said.

"This was indeed liberation not conquest and the Iraqi people, given the chance, are every bit as much in favour of freedom as people anywhere in the world," Blair told MPs before they began a two-week Easter break.

He added that while predictions of widespread casualties had been proven wrong, "Nonetheless, innocent people died along with the guilty and it places upon us a special and profound responsibility for Iraq's future."

Iraq should have elections for a fully representative government about 12 months after an interim authority is put into place, he added.

There would be "a fully representative Iraqi government once a new constitution has been approved and after elections which we hope will be about one year" after the interim authority starts work, Blair said.

SPACE.WIRE