Syria: Israel A "Major Obstacle" To Peace
"The failure of the peace process so far has clearly shown that Israel is the major obstacle to peace. How can a state that was founded on illegal occupation and continues to murder the original inhabitants work toward peace?" Assad wondered in an opening address to a ministerial meeting of the 57-nation Organization of the Islamic Conference in Damascus.
"How can a country that has chosen the most extreme government in its history be a partner for peace?" he added, referring to the Israeli government of right-wing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, which took office two months ago.
"Our experience with Israel during indirect peace negotiations mediated by Turkey is further proof of this," Assad said.
Turkey brokered four rounds of indirect talks between the two foes last year, the first such contacts since previous peace negotiations were broken off in 2000 over the fate of the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.
But Syria froze the contacts at the turn of the year when Israel launched a devastating offensive against the Gaza Strip, controlled since June 2007 by the Islamist Hamas movement whose exiled leader, Khaled Meshaal, lives in Damascus.
"The failure of political methods to recover the legitimate rights gives the right of the resistance to take up its duties," he said.
"We the Arab nations, and especially Syria, will not change our view about peace as a strategic goal, including the full return of occupied lands," he added.
U.S. officials told their Syrian counterparts this month that President Barack Obama, who has placed Middle East peace high on his agenda, was committed to seeking a deal between Syria and Israel, in contrast to a less enthusiastic position by his predecessor, George W. Bush.
George Mitchell, Obama's Middle East envoy, is expected to visit Damascus and meet Assad after Lebanon's parliamentary election June 7.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov is taking part in the conference and was expected to see Assad later. Russia, a member of the Middle East Diplomatic Quartet, has been seeking a greater role in Middle East diplomacy and hopes to host a peace conference in Moscow soon.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Wednesday after meeting U.S. President Barack Obama in Washington that he was ready to resume the talks with Syria immediately, but indicated he would not make any commitments on land first.
Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Moualem said any resumption would be useless without an Israeli commitment to withdraw from the Syrian Golan Heights, which Israel has occupied for the last 42 years.
"The return of the Golan is not a precondition but a requirement for peace. If Israel does not honor these requirements then there is no point of conducting useless negotiations," Moualem said on the sideline of the 36th session of the OIC.
"Negotiations will be futile if there is no true Israeli will to make peace and no U.S. involvement. We will not go back to wasting time," he added.
The OIC foreign ministers sat the previous day for a brain storm to discuss the agenda which includes the Middle East peace process, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Kashmir, combating Islamophobia, terrorism, racial disputes among Muslims in a number of countries and a review of new charter for the organization which originally saw light in 1969 in Morocco.
The Ministers were also expected to examine in the 3-day conference a conceptual paper on its future role in maintaining peace, security and resolving conflicts in the Member States. The paper sets out from the premise that the Muslim world needs to have peacekeeping troops, as myriad conflicts are waged within Muslim territories.
The OIC, which is headed by its incumbent Secretary General Dr. Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, is an international organization with a permanent delegation at the United Nations. It groups 57 member states, from the Middle East, Africa, Central Asia, the Caucasus region, the Balkans, Southeast Asia, South Asia and South America.
The Islamic Conference of Foreign Ministers meets once a year to examine a progress report on the implementation of its decisions taken within the framework of policy defined by the Islamic Summit.