Syria depicted on Thursday that U. S. President George W. Bush's Republican party's loss in both houses of the Congress as a "major shift", saying it showed a rebuke by the voters for the administration's policies on Iraq.

"The election results are a major shift because the American people voted for change, against the war and against the neoconservative policies of the current administration," Syrian Information Minister Mohsen Bilal was quoted as saying by the official SANA news agency.

The outcome was a "real slap" from the American people in the face of the Bush administration for its war against Iraq, the minister added.

Meanwhile, Bilal noted that Democrat Nancy Pelosi, who is expected to be the first female speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, had voted against a resolution authorizing the use of force in Iraq.

Syria's relations with the United States have been strained as the Bush administration always accused Damascus of supporting terrorism and not doing enough to stop anti-U.S. militants from crossing into Iraq.

Source: Xinhua