High Hopes For Mideast Peace
President Clinton and Syrian President Hafez Assad met Sunday for their first full-scale talks since 1994 in hopes of resuming stalled Syrian-Israeli peace negotiations.
Administration officials say the two did not resolve obstacles to holding a new round of negotiations.
Expectations were high, reports CBS News Senior White House Correspondent John Roberts. The Administration tried to dampen anticipation of immediate results.
"Syria knows what it will have to do," Secretary of State Madeline Albright told CBS News' Face The Nation on Sunday, before the Clinton-Assad meeting.
"What is important is that Israel, if it, in fact, does give up land, feels that it has a sense of security and it is entitled to that."
"Every country is, and that its borders are secure. I think we'll just have to see how this progresses."
Interviewed on ABC's This Week, Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak said the meeting between President Clinton and Syrian leader Hafez Assad could determine once and for all if Israel has the opportunity to eventually make peace with Syria.
Mr. Clinton and Assad greeted each other at a luxury hotel overlooking Lake Geneva. They chatted for a few minutes in a hallway and then joined their delegations in a meeting room. Mr. Clinton and Assad shook hands as they posed for pictures in front of a table with a bright array of flowers.
Mr. Clinton was joined by Secretary Albright, National Security Adviser Sandy Berger, chief of staff John Podesta, special Middle East coordinator Dennis Ross and Rob Malley of the National Security Council staff.
Assad was accompanied by Abdul Raouf al-Qasem, head of the National Security Office, Foreign Minister Farouk al-Sharaa and Riad Daoudi, Assad's legal adviser.
Before the meeting began, Berger said the United States hopes that over the next few weeks the two sides "will reach the conclusion that they can enter into a serious round of negotiation. But that's by no means certain."
Secretary Albright told Face The Nation that President Clinton has a role to play because he has "the confidence of both of Prime Minister Barak and of President Assad.
"But, you know, the differences may not be reconcilable. We have to try to figure out whether they are though."
Peace negotiations between the two nations broke off in January. But in Syria, the state-run Syria Times said, "It seems that there is ample light for hope." It said the summit provided an opportunity to reveal how much U.S. efforts "have nudged the conditions for productive talks into place."
Another government newspaper in Syria, Tishrin, said the Geneva meeting was "the last chance to push forward the peace process."
Before Sunday's meeting, President Clinton and his daughter Chelsea took a late-morning stroll from their hotel to a park by Lake Geneva. Arm in arm they looked across the lake and greeted people out with their dogs or admiring the park's gardens.
It was a crisp overcast spring day and the president wore a blue blazer and jeans while Chelsea wore gray slacks and a gray jacket.
After their walk, Mr. Clinton returned to his hotel to prepare for his meeting with Assad.
Berger previewed the Clinton-Assad meeting as the president flew to Geneva on Saturday after a stopover in Muscat, Oman, at the end of a six-day trip to India, Pakistan and Bangladesh.
In Muscat, the president told the Sultan Qaboos that "the gaps are not huge but the path is very difficult" as Syria and Israel seek a land-for-peace agreement, Berger said. The two sides are seeking a deal in which Israel would surrender control of the strategic Golan Heights, captured from Syria in the 1967 Mideast War, in return for security guarantees from Damascus.
Berger said Mr. Clinton would consult with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak after the meeting while Assad returns to Damascus to weigh what he learned from Clinton.
Berger said President Clinton would describe why he believes negotiations with Israel can resume in a serious fashion with both sides committed to reaching an agreement. For both sides to reach that conclusion, he said, "there needs to be a higher level of confidence - certainly not certainty but confidence - that their respective needs can be met in an ultimate agreement."
Elaborating on his comment that differences may be irreconcilable, Berger said, "I mean that in the end of the day there has to be a win-win. They both have to compromise but they both have to believe that they are stronger and better positioned as a result of reaching a peace agreement.
"Whether or not that is achievable or doable, I think, is still unclear," he said.
Berger denied rumors that Mr. Clinton might extend this trip to go to Israel. He said Mr. Clinton intends to return to Washington Sunday night, but left open the possibility of staying in Geneva to continue talks with Assad on Monday.