(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BLITZER: Foreign Minister, welcome back to "LATE EDITION." Thanks very much for joining us.

In the last two weeks or so, since the formation of your new government, more than 400 Iraqis have been killed by insurgents -- seems like an incredibly high number, to all of us watching from the outside. What's going on?

HOSHYAR ZEBARI, IRAQI FOREIGN MINISTER: Well, what's going on that these attacks have been escalated to undermine the new elected government to be able to perform and to provide services, and to undermine its credibility. I mean, it was expected, that the terrorists, after they were put on a black note (ph), after the election, have made use of the vacuum that was created by the delay in the formation of the government. And this is a desperate attempt by them to try to inflict as much damage as possible on innocent Iraqis and on the image of this new government. But we are confident we will be able to defeat them with more effective security policies.

BLITZER: It seems like the attacks, the assassinations, especially, are hitting very close to your home. A senior Foreign Ministry official was gunned down only yesterday. How worried are you personally about your security, the security of other cabinet members?

ZEBARI: Well, we've been through this over the last two years, and we are safe and sound, as you see. But we face those dangers every day, indeed. The official who was killed and assassinated yesterday by some unknown gunman, actually was not a very senior official of the ministry. He was an employee. And it was very sad. We lost a good friend.

But we are all actually targets for those terrorists and Saddamists who want to derail this process and to undermine what we are trying to build of a democratic, free Iraq.

BLITZER: Operation Matador was a week-long U.S. military effort to stop the infiltration along the border between Syria and Iraq. About 1,000 U.S. Marines were involved. It's now over. Is the Syrian government doing what you would like it to do to prevent foreign fighters from infiltrating into Iraq?

ZEBARI: In fact, this operation was necessary and it was very successful. A number of foreign fighters have been detained, and including some Saudi nationals, and with some very firm evidence of their terror network.

And as far as the location, this operation was taking place very, very close to the Syrian borders. We believe many of the infiltrators have come from Syria.

And as our investigation showed and revealed, Syria is not doing enough. Recently, we had two meetings with them, one in Istanbul with the foreign minister. And even I handed him information and list of names of wanted people by Iraqi justice, by security authorities, to have and turn them over to the Iraqi government. And also, we asked them to tighten border controls, to stop infiltrations, to stop the agitation in the media, in the mosque against this situation here in Iraq.

The same message we passed recently with President Talabani to King Abdullah of Jordan, and with the Jordanian officials.

In fact, many of these foreign fighters are coming from outside. They are non-Iraqis. And they are the one who are carrying out most of this terrorist and suicidal car bombs against Iraqi civilians and Iraqi security forces.

BLITZER: You were quoted by the Associated Press this past Tuesday as saying, referring to your neighbors, "Generally, they don't like what we are doing to build democracy in that part of the world. There is some tolerance for these terror networks on the part of the neighboring countries." Specifically, where is that tolerance -- beyond Syria -- I assume you're referring to Syria, but are you also referring to Jordan and Saudi Arabia?

ZEBARI: In fact, I was referring to most of our neighbors, or all of our neighbors. They're not doing enough. Their inaction is helping, is assisting those foreign fighters to move at ease, to cross the borders without any checks, without any attempts to neutralize them, to stop them.

And this is what I was referring to. They're not doing enough. What they're doing is insufficient, and this is very dangerous. I mean, in the old days, we had a saying of the Afghan Arabs, who went to Afghanistan to fight. Now we are going to call them Iraqi Arabs, who will go back to their countries to inflict more harm and damage on their own.

So really here we have a shared interest and a common objective with them to fight terrorism and to cooperate and to deal with each other in good faith.

BLITZER: Is there a possibility that you can expand your government now to bring in more Sunnis, especially when it comes to writing a permanent constitution for Iraq? Because of the 55 members of this committee that you put together to write this constitution, only two are Iraqi Sunnis.

ZEBARI: Yes, Wolf, we are aware of this problem, in fact. The Iraqi government is aware. But this is a product of the National Assembly. The Sunnis were not well represented at the Assembly, because they didn't participate, or they were half-hearted about taking part in the election. So this commission in fact was a direct product of the National Assembly.

But we have plans, and we have been discussing, even from today, to try to engage them, to involve them in the writing of the constitution. There would be a number of subcommittees, to reach out to them and to make sure that their participation is not cosmetic, but it is real.

This constitution writing process is historical. It's not for this generation, it's for future generations, and they should be fully represented in the process.

BLITZER: The New York Times has a front page story today saying that some of the Sunnis, groups with ties to the insurgents, have been reaching out quietly to the U.S., to the Bush administration, with the hope of trying to come into the government themselves. Are you ready to get former Saddam loyalists, to let them come work in this government together with you? ZEBARI: Well, this government and the previous government, Wolf, really went out of their way to reach out to the Sunni, to credible Sunni leaders who would participate in the political process, and this process of building democracy in Iraq, to create a new Iraq, a tolerant Iraq that's for all. And the response recently we had was a positive one. I think one of the outcome of the January election was it's made the Sunni community to move to be more active, to organize themselves, to have some representation and to be prepared to participate in the next election.

We have now a good number of Sunni, of credible Sunni leaders in this new government. In fact, their representation is far more than their actual weight in the assembly.

Here actually now with the Sunnis, we've gone beyond representation to discuss policies, to make them partner in setting out, you know, even the government policies. So we are trying our best to make sure they participate, and they could use their influence on those disaffected people, disenfranchised groups in the society, to participate and to abandon violence and the language of arms and resort to the language of dialogue.

BLITZER: One final question, because we're almost out of time, Mr. Foreign Minister. The secretary of state of the United States, Condoleezza Rice, as we speak right now, is in Iraq, meeting with your government, getting a sense of what's going on.

There is deep concern, though, here in Washington among many observers that the new Iraqi government eventually could be closer to Iran, its neighbor, than it is to the United States, given the influence of the Iranian government on what's going on in Baghdad. What do you say to that deep concern?

ZEBARI: Well, I don't think that concern is well-placed. I think the Iraqi government, the Iraqi people are appreciative of the role of the United States government, of the U.S. forces, who are putting their lives on the line every day to support and to help the Iraqis.

But at the same time, as a fact of life, Iraq is a neighbor, a geographical neighbor, to Iran. And that is our destiny. We need also to have good, workable relations, based on noninterference in our internal affairs by Iran or any other country.

So as far as the policy of this government is concerned, we value highly our relationship with the United States, and we know its influence on the region, on our country, but at the same time, we are trying to build good relations with our neighbors, including Iran.

BLITZER: Will the visit by Dr. Rice, by Secretary Rice, be followed by a similar visit from Iran?

ZEBARI: I believe so. I believe so. Today I learned actually there is an interest by the Iranian foreign minister to pay a visit to Iraq, to congratulate the new Iraqi government, and that's why he's planning to come after Dr. Rice's visit. BLITZER: Foreign Minister, good to spend some time with you. Thanks very much for joining us on "LATE EDITION."

ZEBARI: Not at all. It's my pleasure.

(END VIDEOTAPE)