NAPLES, Italy, 5 December 2003 — Israel had contacts with Syria sometime during the war in Iraq but they were broken off after a leak to the media, an Israeli official quoted Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom as saying on Wednesday.

“He (Shalom) said he had been ‘aware of contacts’ between Israel and Syria at that time and that they had been broken off after a leak to the press,” said the official, a member of the Israeli delegation at a conference in Naples.

“The minister did not make it clear if the contacts were direct or indirect,” he added without elaborating. He said Shalom had made the remarks to Israeli journalists on the fringes of the Naples conference.

In a New York Times interview published on Monday, Syrian President Bashar Assad urged Washington to help revive talks with Israel which collapsed nearly four years ago over the Golan Heights seized by Israel from Syria in the 1967 Middle East war.

In Naples, Shalom cautiously welcomed Bashar’s comments, but said progress depended on Syria ending “terrorism and violence coming from its territory”.

Israel’s newspaper Ma’ariv said on Wednesday that a mediator delivered to Israel a Syrian cease-fire proposal by which Syrian-backed Hezbollah resistance fighters would halt attacks on Israel from Lebanon if Israel’s Air Force halted flights over Lebanon where Syria is the main power broker.

Asked about the Ma’ariv report, Shalom told Israel’s Army Radio on Wednesday: “I didn’t receive this proposal. There was one several months ago to me and the prime minister... We decided to hold a meeting... Afterward we decided to wait a month.

“It was during the height of fighting in Iraq ... then it was published and became irrelevant,” he told the radio. Syrian and Israeli delegations were in Naples for the Euro-Mediterranean Conference, which brings together the 15 EU member states and 12 Mediterranean neighbors including those two countries, formally at war since Israel’s creation in 1948.

Meanwhile, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva expressed support on Wednesday for Syria’s demand that Israel return the occupied Golan Heights. Speaking on a visit to Damascus, Lula said any new United Nations resolution requiring an Israeli withdrawal from Golan would have the support of Brazil, which won a non-permanent seat on the UN Security Council last month.

Lula also criticized Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories after talks with Bashar, whose country finishes its two-year term on the Security Council in December. “Brazil is going to vote in the United Nations in favor of a resolution that demands the return of the Golan Heights to Syria,” he said in a speech at a state dinner.

No new UN resolution has been tabled and previous resolutions have done little to resolve the dispute about the Golan Heights, which Israel captured from Syria in the 1967 Middle East war.

“The continuation of the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories and the continued expansion of settlements are unacceptable,” said Lula, who arrived in Damascus earlier on Wednesday at the start of a regional tour.

Since taking office in January, Brazil’s first working class president has traveled widely to extend the diplomatic clout of Latin America’s largest economy and carve out a role for himself as a champion of the world’s poor and oppressed.

“We have clearly expressed our wish for establishing peace in the Middle East ... but this initiative was met with the rejection and negligence by Israel,” Bashar said at the dinner.

Israel has cautiously welcomed Bashar’s call, but said progress depended on Syria ending “terrorism and violence coming from its territory”.

Bashar and Lula called for closer bilateral economic ties and the two countries signed several agreements on cooperation in tourism, public health, education, technology and sports. Lula hopes to clinch more trade deals for his economy, which is barely expected to grow this year, when he visits Lebanon, Libya, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates.