'Syria is ready for unconditional peace talks' with Israel

by Musa Keilani

It took Damascus ten years to the day to follow King Hussein's advice in 1994 to declare that Syria is ready for unconditional talks with Israel, as President Bashar Assad had just declared this week.

Israel is deliberately playing possum to Syrian overtures to revive peace negotiations since it knows well that at some point its bluff would be called and its desire for peace with the Syrians would prove to be hollow since it has no intention of returning any part of the Golan Heights.

The Syrian leadership has grabbed the opportunity presented by American pressure, direct as well as indirect, through the UN, for the departure of the 13,000 Syrian troops from Lebanon. It has already informed the US and the UN that it would complete the withdrawal in four to five months' time, but maintain some 3,000 to 4,000 troops on Lebanese territory. These soldiers will defend four Syrian radar stations in Lebanon and their terrain approaches, which is permissible under the friendship pact Beirut and Damascus signed in the 1990s.

Obviously, Syria hopes that the withdrawal would help avert US-engineered UN sanctions and to step up indirect pressure on Israel for peace talks on the Golan Heights. Diplomatic sources said the Syrian government had assured Washington and the UN that it was committed to recalling its soldiers from Lebanon by this winter's end. This has not been announced publicly by Damascus but conveyed by Syrian Foreign Minister Farouk Al Sharaa to US Secretary of State Colin Powell on Nov. 23 at the Sharm El Sheikh conference on Iraq and by Assad to UN Middle East envoy Terje Roed-Larsen who visited the Syrian capital on Nov. 24.

They said a decision had been taken to abide by UN Security Council Resolution 1559 on Lebanese sovereignty demanding Syrian departure from the country. But they also pointed out that once Syria had removed the bulk of its army from Lebanon, it expected Israel to withdraw from the Golan Heights in line with Security Council resolutions 338 and 242.

According to sources, Powell and Roed-Larsen were told that Syria has decided to retain in Lebanon only four radar stations, one each atop Mount Barukh and Mount Sanin in central Lebanon, one at the Dahar Al Baidar key point, commanding the Beirut-Damascus highway, and the fourth at Bsharri, in the north.

In principle, Syria is abiding by Security Council Resolution 1559, but the move would expose Israel's rejection of withdrawing from the Golan Heights. Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom says the latest "opportunity" from Damascus needs to be examined in the proper light, although Israel wanted very much to renew negotiations with Syria. "We would like very much to talk to the Syrians. However, it's not acceptable that the same time they talk about peace, they facilitate terrorism inside Israel," Shalom told Israeli television.

"Our position is clear: If we have a real partner for peace, the current Israeli government is ready for peace with all of its neighbours," he said. "There is still Hamas and Islamic Jihad activity in Damascus. Their training camps in Syria are still active. Iranian missiles are still making their way to the Hizbollah via the airport in Damascus. Hizbollah is very involved in terrorism inside Israel, and Syria is a sponsor of Hizbollah," the foreign minister claimed.

The fundamental mistake that Shalom and his boss Ariel Sharon are making is that they assume that Assad is seeking to alleviate American pressure on Damascus and is not serious for peace talks. However, the message from Damascus is clear: Syria is ready for unconditional talks, and this is a marked shift from the position that the talks should resume from where they were left off while Ehud Barak was prime minister of Israel.

In any case, Israel would have to ease up pressure on Syria and Lebanon in the immediate short term. As Lebanese Information Minister Elie Firzli said on Thursday, Lebanon needs Syrian military help to implement Resolution 1559 which calls on Syria, without naming it, to withdraw its troops from Lebanon and urged the Lebanese government to disband local and foreign militias, in a clear reference to Hizbollah and armed Palestinian factions.

Firzli has said Lebanese security forces will not be able to disband the militias without Syria's assistance.

"In view of the existing conditions in the Middle East region, the Lebanese forces cannot achieve that objective without a Syrian military cover," he says.

"We hope that big powers, especially the United States, help us maintain the existing status quo and stop pushing matters which are causing internal divisions that we don't know where they will lead," Firzli said.

In his meeting with Sharaa at Sharm El Sheikh, Powell demanded that Syria do more to identify those raising money for Iraqi insurgents there, but said he had "very candid discussions" about the issue with the Syrian minister.

"We talked more about what they might do within Syria to identify and see if we can help them pinpoint who might be taking advantage of Syria to raise money or provide funds across the border to insurgent elements or terrorists in Iraq. There's more that we think Syria can do," Powell said.

"And I also know that the Iraqi government wants to work more closely with Syria to seal that border from infiltrators, from financing, from arms and equipment that might go across the border to insurgents and terrorists." Obviously, the US is linking any American move to pick up on the Syrian initiative for peace talks with Israel to an end to what Washington sees as Syrian help for insurgents fighting the US forces in Iraq. Again, that might turn out to be an American mistake, given Syrian concerns over Washington neoconservatives' known desire to target Syria and Iran after "stabilising!!!" Iraq.

This article was published in the Sunday, November 28, 2004 edition of the Jordan Times. It is used here with permission.