DAMASCUS, 13 July 2003 — Syria said yesterday it was willing to restart peace talks with Israel, but rejected the Jewish state’s demand for talks without preconditions, insisting the negotiations pick up where they broke off three years ago.
US-brokered Syrian-Israeli peace talks broke down in 2000 over the future of the Golan Heights, which Israel captured from Syria in the 1967 Middle East war. Israel says it will only enter negotiations if there are no preconditions. Damascus insists any new talks must refer to previous diplomacy.
“If there is an honest intention to resume the talks, the way has been paved by the Syrian side on the basis of previous negotiations which made significant progress,” an editorial in Syria’s official Tishreen newspaper said.
“It would not be permissible to resume negotiations from the beginning, or to wipe out all that was accomplished and required grueling effort and talks including the United States itself, which embraced the peace process and not merely talks.”
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, who came to power in 2001, has ruled out meeting any preconditions for talks.
Since the last negotiations between Syria and Israel collapsed, Washington’s emphasis in the region has been on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Damascus is disgruntled over the internationally backed “road map” to peace between Israel and the Palestinians, which pays little attention to its demands.
In another development, all charges brought against elderly Syrian human rights activist Haytham Al-Maleh are likely to be dropped at final sentencing slated for Tuesday, his lawyer said yesterday.
Anwar Al-Buni told reporters that Al-Maleh, head of the Human Rights Association in Syria (HRAS), was likely to see the charges against him dropped as they were included in an amnesty decree issued ten days ago by President Bashar Assad.
