WASHINGTON, May 1: The United States on Thursday described Syria as a “terrorist” state and urged Damascus to reassess its role in the world.

Commenting on a State Department report, which mentions Syria as one of the seven states sponsoring terrorism, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said: “The message to Syria is that Syria is a terrorist country that has supported terrorists.”

“Syria occupies a considerable portion of Lebanon through the Hezbollah, and Syria needs to reassess its role in the world,” he added.

The spokesman said the United States hopes that Syria will choose a different direction than it has in the past. The Syrian leadership, he said, was “relatively new and untested” and therefore it is capable of changing itself.

“It is also important they continue to receive the message that they have been receiving in regard to not harbouring anybody who is trying to leave Iraq,” Fleischer said.

Besides Syria, the State Department’s “Patterns of Global Terrorism: 2002” report, released earlier this week, identifies Cuba, Iran, Iraq, Libya, North Korea, and Sudan as state sponsors of terrorism.

Although criticizing all seven for failing to “disassociate” themselves fully from their ties to terrorism, the report signals out Iran as “the most active state sponsor.”

“Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and Ministry of Intelligence and Security were involved in the planning of and support for terrorist acts and continued to exhort a variety of groups that use terrorism to pursue their goals,” the report says.

The designation of state sponsors of terrorism is a mechanism for isolating nations that America sees as using terrorism as a means of political expression, the State Department said.

Countries on the list since 1993 are subject to a variety of United States sanctions.