BEIRUT, 25 April 2008 — Syrian President Bashar Assad confirmed in remarks published yesterday Turkish mediation between his country and Israel but suggested there would be no direct negotiations with the Jewish state until a new US administration takes office.
Bashar’s comments in Qatar’s Al-Watan newspaper provided the first details of Turkish mediation, which Damascus says has yielded an Israeli offer for a withdrawal from the Golan Heights in return for a peace treaty with Syria.
He said Turkey began its mediation in April last year and that there would be no secret talks with Israel. The preliminary stages of talks, he said, would be held with Turkey as a go-between. “Maybe with the coming administration in the United States we can talk about direct negotiations,” he told Al-Watan, which only published excerpts of the interview.
He said the United States was the only party qualified to sponsor any direct Syrian-Israeli negotiations. Israel, which captured the strategic heights in the 1967 Mideast War, has declined to comment on the reported offer to return the Golan in return for peace with Syria.
Officials in the Syrian presidency confirmed that Bashar gave the interview and did not dispute its contents. Syria and Israel last held peace negotiations in 2000. Those talks collapsed over the extent of Israel’s proposed withdrawal.
Bashar told Al-Watan that he would discuss details of Ankara’s mediation with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan when he visits Damascus on Saturday.
A week ago, he said, Syria received the news that Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert “assured the Turkish prime minister of his readiness to return the Golan. What we need now is finding common ground through the Turkish mediator.”
Meanwhile, Syria yesterday dismissed US accusations that North Korea was helping it build a nuclear reactor that could produce plutonium.
Syria’s ambassador to Britain, Sami Al-Khiyami, told Reuters that the accusation was to put pressure on North Korea in talks about Pyongyang’s nuclear program.
“This has nothing to do with North Korea and Syria. They just want to exert more pressure on North Korea. This is why they are coming up with this story,” Khiyami said.
“The cooperation between North Korea and Syria has nothing to do with (building) a nuclear facility. Cooperation is mainly economic.
“This is political manipulation ahead of the talks with North Korea to exert more pressure on them,” he said.
Khiyami was speaking before what a US official said would be evidence regarding Syria-North Korea nuclear cooperation to be put to lawmakers in Washington today.
