Syria's President Bashar Al-Assad and Jordan's King Abdullah II On Monday praised U.S. efforts for maintaining lasting settlement in the Middle East, as Washington was promoting a peace plan involving a 57-state solution in which the entire Muslim world would recognize Israel.
But both leaders underlined after a lengthy set of talks in the Syrian capital the "U.S. calls for achieving durable and comprehensive peace should be on the basis of the Madrid formula and the land-for-peace principle which maintains security and stability for the people of the region," according to a statement.
King Abdullah arrived earlier in the day in a previously unannounced trip and immediately headed for the People's Palace to brief Assad on the outcome of his April 21 meeting with U.S. President Barack Obama, said the statement, which was carried on the state-run news agency.
Peace in the Middle East would be "positively reflected on international security," added the statement, which had no mention of the U.S. administration's decision to renew economic and diplomatic sanctions against Damascus.
In May last year, Syria and Israel announced they had agreed to launch Turkish-brokered indirect negotiations for the first time since they were broken off in January 2000.
Syria froze those indirect talks at the turn of the year when Israel launched a devastating aggression against the Gaza Strip, controlled since June 2007 by the Islamist Hamas movement whose exiled leader Khaled Meshaal resides in Damascus.
The king's last trip to neighboring Syria was in 2007, while Assad visited Amman in March.
Abdullah himself told Monday's Times of London that the United States was promoting a peace plan involving a "57-state solution" in which the entire Muslim world would recognize Israel.
"We are offering a third of the world to meet them with open arms," the king said. "The future is not the Jordan River or the Golan Heights or the Sinai, the future is Morocco in the Atlantic and Indonesia in the Pacific. That is the prize."
The newspaper said the king had hatched the plan with Obama in Washington in April. Details are likely to be thrashed out in a series of diplomatic moves this month, including Obama's meeting next week in Washington with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is currently having talks with Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak.
Assad and Addullah, the Presidential statement read, urged the Palestinian to reconcile and unify ranks, in particular with the new Israeli government which "rejects peace and refuses to give rights back to their owners."
Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said he would not cede the strategic Golan Heights for the sake of peace with Syria. His main right-wing and ultra-Orthodox coalition partners oppose negotiations with the Palestinians on the so-called core issues -- the borders of a Palestinian state as well as the fate of Jerusalem and Palestinian refugees.
Palestinian sources in Damascus told CBS News on condition their names would not be used that Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who is also seeing Obama this month, would fly to the Syrian capital on Thursday for urgent talks with Assad.
Syria, Jordan Comment On U.S. Mideast Plan
/ CBS News
Syria's President Bashar Al-Assad and Jordan's King Abdullah II On Monday praised U.S. efforts for maintaining lasting settlement in the Middle East, as Washington was promoting a peace plan involving a 57-state solution in which the entire Muslim world would recognize Israel.
But both leaders underlined after a lengthy set of talks in the Syrian capital the "U.S. calls for achieving durable and comprehensive peace should be on the basis of the Madrid formula and the land-for-peace principle which maintains security and stability for the people of the region," according to a statement.
King Abdullah arrived earlier in the day in a previously unannounced trip and immediately headed for the People's Palace to brief Assad on the outcome of his April 21 meeting with U.S. President Barack Obama, said the statement, which was carried on the state-run news agency.
Peace in the Middle East would be "positively reflected on international security," added the statement, which had no mention of the U.S. administration's decision to renew economic and diplomatic sanctions against Damascus.
In May last year, Syria and Israel announced they had agreed to launch Turkish-brokered indirect negotiations for the first time since they were broken off in January 2000.
Syria froze those indirect talks at the turn of the year when Israel launched a devastating aggression against the Gaza Strip, controlled since June 2007 by the Islamist Hamas movement whose exiled leader Khaled Meshaal resides in Damascus.
The king's last trip to neighboring Syria was in 2007, while Assad visited Amman in March.
Abdullah himself told Monday's Times of London that the United States was promoting a peace plan involving a "57-state solution" in which the entire Muslim world would recognize Israel.
"We are offering a third of the world to meet them with open arms," the king said. "The future is not the Jordan River or the Golan Heights or the Sinai, the future is Morocco in the Atlantic and Indonesia in the Pacific. That is the prize."
The newspaper said the king had hatched the plan with Obama in Washington in April. Details are likely to be thrashed out in a series of diplomatic moves this month, including Obama's meeting next week in Washington with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is currently having talks with Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak.
Assad and Addullah, the Presidential statement read, urged the Palestinian to reconcile and unify ranks, in particular with the new Israeli government which "rejects peace and refuses to give rights back to their owners."
Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said he would not cede the strategic Golan Heights for the sake of peace with Syria. His main right-wing and ultra-Orthodox coalition partners oppose negotiations with the Palestinians on the so-called core issues -- the borders of a Palestinian state as well as the fate of Jerusalem and Palestinian refugees.
Palestinian sources in Damascus told CBS News on condition their names would not be used that Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who is also seeing Obama this month, would fly to the Syrian capital on Thursday for urgent talks with Assad.