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Turkey: U.S. backs mediation bid for Syrian-Israeli peace
By Reuters, from Haaretz June 5 2008 |
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Turkey is sure the United States backs the indirect peace talks it is mediating between Israel and Syria, Ankara's foreign minister said on Thursday.
Speaking after he met with U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Turkish Foreign Minister Ali Babacan sought to dispel the idea that Washington - which has sought to isolate Damascus - had offered only lukewarm support for the dialogue between Israel and Syria.
Babacan also stressed the importance of the Israel-Syria track, saying "it seems that the international community really has been waiting for this for a while."
"The Syria-Israeli track is now open again and we hope that that reaches a much-expected result," Babacan told reporters at a joint news conference with Rice at the State Department.
Israel and Syria announced last month that they had begun a dialogue mediated by Turkey with the aim of a comprehensive peace deal, the first confirmation of negotiations between the longtime enemies in eight years.
Once the talks were announced, U.S. officials said they would welcome a peace agreement between the two countries, but made clear their focus would be on the Israeli-Palestinian Mideast peace track.
Babacan said that the United States had been one of the first countries to make public statements of support for the Syria-Israel dialogue.
"We have no doubt about it," he told a reporter who asked whether he wished for stronger U.S. support. "We are happy" about U.S. backing for the process.
Turkey has good ties with both Israel and Syria.
The relationship between Turkey and the United States, NATO allies, has improved in recent years after being strained by Turkey's refusal to allow Washington to build up forces on its territory ahead of the March 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.
The Bush administration walked away from high-level contacts with the Syrians after the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri in 2005. The United States suspects Syria of the killing, a charge Syria denies.
Assad: Israel not serious about peace with Syria
Syrian President Bashar Assad said Thursday that if Israel keeps insisting that recently renewed peace talks between the two nations resume from scratch, it would signify that Israel was not serious about reaching a deal with Syria.
Israel and Syria said last month they had launched indirect peace talks mediated by Turkish officials, the first negotiations between the two sides in eight years.
The previous attempt to achieve a peace agreement came close to a deal over the Golan Heights - the territory Israel captured from Syria in the 1967 Six-Day War which Syria demands back in exchange for peace - but broke down in 2000 over control of the shore of Sea of Galilee, from which Israel takes much of its water.
Assad said during a visit to Kuwait that the Israelis were insisting that negotiations restart from scratch and that the progress made in the earlier talks in the 1990s be canceled.
"This signals that Israel does not desire peace and is not willing to reach it," he said in comments carried by Kuwait's state news agency KUNA.
"We are now testing the water... and this means regaining the occupied Golan... and if we reach a solution on this issue then what remains are other issues that are the second stage of talks."
Assad also dismissed Israeli demands that Syria give up its alliance with Iran as a condition for peace.
Israeli officials have said a peace deal depends on Syria distancing itself from Iran and severing ties with the Lebanese guerilla movement Hezbollah and the militant Palestinian group Hamas.
"We do not accept the imposition of conditions on us that are linked to countries that have nothing to do with the peace..." he said, adding that Iran had welcomed the talks.
"Should we establish relations with Israel and lose our relations with the world?"
Many analysts say U.S. hostility to Syria makes a peace deal with Israel unlikely before U.S. President George W. Bush leaves office in January.
Assad: Diplomatic ties with Lebanon possible after national unity cabinet forms
Assad says establishing diplomatic ties with Lebanon will be possible if a national unity Cabinet is formed in Beirut.
Assad, in an interview with Kuwaiti newspapers published Thursday, says it was not suitable to open an embassy in Beirut when relations between the two countries were not good. But he says that after last month's Doha agreement that ended a political stalemate in Lebanon, things started going in a better direction.
The Arab-League brokered deal allowed for the election of a president and
paved the way for a 30-member unity Cabinet, including members of Syria's ally Hezbollah.
Damascus dominated Lebanon for nearly three decades before the outcry over the 2005 assassination of former premier Rafik Hariri forced it to withdraw its troops from that country.
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