Posted on 02/18/2004 6:10:23 PM PST by yonif
U.S. President George Bush said Syrian messages offering to renew peace talks with Israel were very interesting, and represent an encouraging sign. Bush stated, however, that he wanted to get a clearer idea of Syrian President Bashar Assad's intentions, Israel Radio reported on Thursday.
Bush reiterated his demand that Syria cease funding Hezbollah, shut down offices of terror organizations in its territory and keep its border with Iraq impervious to Saddam loyalists and terrorists. Bush was speaking in a television interview to the Arab-language station that the Americans began operating in the Middle East.
A spokesman in the Prime Minister's Office said Israel had not received any messages from Syria via Turkey. Raanan Gissin, an advisor to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, said Israel was ready to negotiate with Syria without any preconditions, but it demands that Syria cease funding Hezbollah and other terror groups. He added that renewing talks did not mean renewing them from the point where they were last stopped.
Syria signals Israel via Turkey Syria has sent messages to Israel via Turkey offering to restart stalled peace talks between the two countries, Syrian Vice President Abdul Halim Khaddam said Wednesday.
The messages carried by Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul expressed "Syria's readiness to resume peace talks from where they broke off" in January 2000, Khaddam said.
They also said that Syria was "still committed to the peace process in accordance with UN Security Council resolutions."
Khaddam spoke to reporters in Damascus following a meeting with an Iraqi delegation of peasants.
Gul, in an interview with the London-based Arabic-language al-Hayat newspaper published Wednesday, said Turkey had received letters and documents from the Syrian side and delivered them to Israel and the United States during his recent visit to Washington. He reiterated Turkey's willingness to help revive Syrian-Israeli peace talks.
Turkey, which enjoys warm relations with Israel, recently said it was also willing to act as an intermediary between Israel and Syria in a bid to revive the countries' peace negotiations.
Turkey has also sought recently to improve relations with its neighbor Syria. In January, Syrian President Bashar Assad made the first visit ever by a Syrian head of state to Turkey.
Assad told The New York Times in November that he wants to renew peace talks with Israel, and he has repeated the offer several times.
Syria wants talks to resume from where they broke off in 2000, when the previous Israeli government accepted a withdrawal from almost all the Golan Heights, seized by Israel in 1967. But Sharon insists the negotiations should begin from scratch.
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