Frank Wolf of Virginia, Joseph Pitts of Pennsylvania and Robert Aderholt of Alabama were in Damascus ahead of a visit this week by US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi whose inclusion of Syria on her Middle East tour was condemned by the White House.

A US diplomatic source in Damascus said Pelosi would arrive in Damascus on Tuesday and leave the following day. During her stay she would meet Assad and discuss Syrian-US ties and regional issues.

Washington's top Democrat will also tell Syrian officials that Israel is ready to revive peace talks if Damascus stops supporting "terrorism," according to the Israeli government spokesman.

Miri Eisin said Pelosi had asked Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on Sunday what she could tell Syrian officials following her visit to Israel.

"It should first of all stop supporting terrorism," Eisin quoted Olmert as telling the speaker. "We will be happy to talk with it if it does so."

Peace talks between Israel and Syria collapsed in 2000 over the parties' inability to agree on the Golan Heights, a strategic plateau that Israel captured from Syria during the 1967 Six Day War and subsequently annexed.

In a statement on the visit by the three republicans released by the US embassy, the lawmakers said they had also repeated their demands at meetings with Syrian businessmen, religious figures and opposition leader Riad Seif.

"In all our meetings... we raised the issue of stopping foreign fighters who are killing American soldiers and innocent Iraqis from entering Iraq through Syria, ending support for Hezbollah and Hamas, recognizing Israel right to exist in peace and security, and ceasing interfering in Lebanon," it said.

Washington, which accuses Syria of helping destabilize neighboring Iraq, supporting groups labeled terrorist by the US State Department and interfering in neighboring Lebanon, has cut contact with Damascus since the February 2005 murder of Lebanon's former prime minister Rafiq Hariri.

The killing was widely blamed on Syria despite its insistence that it was not involved. Pelosi will visit Lebanon on Monday, where she is due to meet parliament -backed Prime Minister Fouad Siniora before heading to Syria

Explaining their visit to Damascus, the three lawmakers said: "We came because we believe there is an opportunity for dialogue."

Syria's official news agency SANA said the US delegation had discussed with Assad "the situation in the region, particularly in Iraq."

The White House has denounced the Damascus visit by Pelosi -- a determined opponent of Republican President George W. Bush's Iraq war policies -- and warned she may hand Assad a symbolic diplomatic victory.

"Assad probably really wants people to come and have a photo opportunity and have tea with him and have discussions about where they're coming from, but we do think that it's a really bad idea," said spokeswoman Dana Perino.

Democratic lawmakers traveling with Pelosi, who was in Israel on Sunday, include House Foreign Affairs Committee chairman Tom Lantos and House Government Reform Committee chairman Henry Waxman and Keith Ellison, the first Muslim elected to the US Congress.

Picture: Syrian President Bashar al-Assad (L) meeting with a US delegation in Damascus. ...Three Republican congressmen -- Frank Wolf of Virginia, Robert Aderholt of Alabama and Joseph Pitts of Pennsylvania.

Sources: Agencies