JERUSALEM, Jan. 16, 2007
Israel-Syria Secret Peace Talks Reported
Newspaper Says Two Sides Reached Understandings Before Lebanon War; Both Countries Deny
-
-
Photo
Israelis touring a military bunker on the Golan Heights, a relic from the June 1967 Arab-Israeli war, in August. (AFP/Getty Images)
-
Photo
A construction site in Ma'aleh Adumim on the West Bank, Jan. 15, 2007. (GETTY)
-
Photo
Palestinian masked Hamas militants are seen at a press conference in Gaza City, Jan. 16, 2007, where Hamas denied accusations by Fatah that they were digging tunnels in the Gaza Strip to target senior officials. (AP)
-
-
Interactive
Mideast Conflict
Events, key players and a history of the world's most unstable region.
-
Photo Essay
Factional Fighting Flares
Clashes between Hamas, Fatah parties escalate hours after a new cease fire
-
Photo Essay
Fragile Cease-Fire
Tens of thousands of Lebanese return home and some Israeli troops withdraw as tenuous cease-fire takes hold.
The report in the daily Haaretz said the two sides reached a series of understandings that included a full Israeli withdrawal from the Golan Heights — captured from Syria in the 1967 Mideast war — and an end to Syrian support for anti-Israel militant groups.
The report did not identify its sources.
A Syrian Foreign Ministry official dismissed the report as "absolutely baseless."
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert denied the story.
"No one in the government was involved in this matter," Olmert told reporters in northern Israel Tuesday. "It was a private initiative on the part of an individual who spoke for himself. From what I read, his interlocutor was an eccentric from the U.S., someone not serious or dignified."
However, another Israeli government official, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the secrecy of the contacts, confirmed that talks took place but said they were not sanctioned by the government.
Members of parliament from hawkish opposition parties said the report was much ado about nothing, adding that it is unthinkable for Israel to give up the strategic Golan Heights, reports CBS News correspondent Robert Berger. But doves from the left wing said the government should seize on the initiative and talk peace with Syria. There is little support in the wider Israeli public for relinquishing the Golan, a popular vacation spot with the only ski resort in the Middle East.
In other developments:
Olmert has said talks cannot take place until Syria ends its support for Palestinian militants and the Lebanese guerrilla group Hezbollah and scales back its alliance with Iran. The White House also has rejected calls to engage Syria in diplomacy, accusing Syria of harboring leaders of the Sunni insurgency in Iraq.
According to the report, the Israeli and Syrian representatives met secretly in Europe several times between September 2004 and July 2006. The talks were conducted with the knowledge of Israeli and Syrian leaders, it added.
Such an agreement would end one of the Middle East's most bitter conflicts. Syria hosts the headquarters of the radical Palestinian groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad, and it is the closest ally of Hezbollah, which waged a 34-day war against Israel last summer.
The report did not say why the talks ended, but the contacts were halted just after the outbreak of the war.
Haaretz reported that Israel was represented in the talks by Alon Liel, a retired senior diplomat, and that former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon was briefed on the meetings. Sharon's successor, Olmert, also was informed, it said.
Silvan Shalom, Israel's foreign minister for much of the negotiating period, said he learned of the talks in Tuesday's newspaper. He said the last contact with Syria that he was aware of took place in 2003.
A woman who answered Liel's home phone on Tuesday said Liel would have no comment except that he hadn't represented anyone beside himself.
The Syrian representative in the talks was reportedly Ibrahim Suleiman, an American citizen who had visited Jerusalem and delivered a message on Syrian interest in an agreement with Israel.
The report said Syrian President Bashar Assad initiated the meetings, and that Turkish mediators made the first contacts between the two sides. The Turkish involvement ended in the summer of 2004, when an unidentified European took over as the leading go-between. Geoffrey Aronson, an American from the Washington-based Foundation for Middle East Peace, was also brought into the talks, it said.
Official peace talks between Israel and Syria broke down in 2000 amid disagreements over an Israeli withdrawal from the Golan, a strategic plateau overlooking northern Israel.
The countries have reportedly held back-channel talks in recent years, both through private initiatives or with tacit knowledge of officials. Itamar Rabinovich, Israel's former chief negotiator with Syria, played down the significance of Tuesday's report.
"What we have here is yet another attempt to create an Israeli-Syrian channel. Given the official positions of Syria itself, Israel and the United States, I am doubtful that this is going to lead anywhere," he said. "By definition (these talks) have to remain informal and secret. The moment that a secret like that is out the channel is dead, it is over."
Haaretz published a text of the agreed-upon document, but it was not signed. It said the document was prepared in August 2005 and was updated during meetings in Europe, the last of which took place during last summer's war between Israel and Hezbollah.
© MMVII, CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.
I love your way with words