DAMASCUS, 5 December 2004 — Syrian state media yesterday urged the international community to force Israel to accept President Bashar Assad’s offer to resume peace talks nearly five years after they broke down in acrimony.
“Syria genuinely wants to make peace... and is waiting for an international push toward a peace accord and to push Israel into agreeing to such an accord,” wrote the government daily Tishrin.
“Peace is not a difficult chemical formula if all parties demonstrate good will. Are we going to wait a long time?” it added.
Tishrin reiterated the government’s commitment to resuming peace talks with Israel at the point where they left off.
“What was achieved by the Syrian and Israeli negotiators between 1991 and 2000 cannot be ignored. Doing so is tantamount to saying that Syrian negotiators talked to ghosts,” it said.
On Nov. 24, visiting UN Middle East envoy Terje Roed-Larsen announced that Assad was willing to resume talks with Israel with no prior conditions.
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said he would meet Assad “under certain conditions” — a response that Damascus swiftly dismissed as unacceptable.
Israeli-Syrian talks collapsed over the fate of the disputed Golan Heights, which Israel occupied in 1967 and later annexed.
