World

Israel-Syria Secret Peace Talks Reported

January 16, 2007 / 10:12 AM EST / CBS/AP

Israeli and Syrian representatives held nearly two years of secret negotiations, coming up with a framework for a peace deal, before war erupted in Lebanon last summer, an Israeli newspaper reported Tuesday.

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, and David Baker, a spokesman for Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, said the government was "unaware of any such meetings."

Dov Weisglass, the bureau chief of the prime minister's office during that period, told Israel Radio he has no knowledge of secret negotiations.

A Syrian Foreign Ministry official dismissed the report as "absolutely baseless."

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.

In other developments:

Former Israeli army chief Dan Shomron told a parliamentary committee that the Lebanon War was conducted without a goal, reports CBS News correspondent Robert Berger. In a critical report, Shomron said Olmert gave instructions to stop the firing of Hezbollah rockets at Israel, but this was not translated into action by the army. Both the army and government have been harshly criticized for the war, which is widely seen as a failure. In the latest poll, Olmert's approval rating plunged to just 14 percent.

Palestinian police say they have thwarted plans by Hamas to assassinate senior officials from the rival Fatah faction, including President Mahmoud Abbas. The police, who are loyal to Abbas, say they discovered a number of underground tunnels along major roads used by Fatah leaders and also beneath their homes. The tunnels were packed with tons of explosives.

Meanwhile, officials from the Hamas militant group and envoys of Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas held intensive talks Monday in an effort to bridge differences over the formation of a national unity government, a senior Palestinian official said. Abbas is expected to visit Damascus later this week.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's appeal for Arab allies to help support the fragile government in Iraq drew only a tepid endorsement Tuesday from the administration's strongest ally in the region, Saudi Arabia. Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal said Saudis hope President Bush's plans to turn around the situation in Iraq is successful, but was plainly skeptical that the Iraqi government is up to the task of doing its part.

The Israeli government published plans on Monday to build new homes in its largest West Bank settlement, defying American opposition to such construction, just as Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was in the region on a peace-seeking mission.

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.