Israel readies maps to end disrupted peace talks
Syria-Israel, Politics, 1/18/2000

Israeli sources blamed Syria for the latest disruption of the peace talks between the two parties and said that Syrian President Hafez al-Assad had lots of expectations from the previous rounds of talks and was eventually disappointed.

The sources said that Syria had hoped for a speedy process of talks and was surprised to find out that Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak had prepared a process that was worse than the Wye Plantation talks with the Palestinians. The second disappointment that Syria had, said the sources, was because he guessed that he was going to receive from Israel in the course of the first round, or at the very latest in the course of the second round, an explicit commitment to withdraw to the June 4, 1967 lines. At the very least, he expected to see an Israeli willingness to sit down at the table and begin to draw a new line that would be called the June 4 line and would be acceptable to both Syria and Israel. None of the above happened. Therefore, the sources said, the Syrian leadership decided to pull the string a bit and cause a tactical crisis with the hope of squeezing a clearer commitment from Israel to pull back to the 4 June borders of 1967.

Meanwhile, Haaretz Hebrew daily reported Tuesday that Barak had already given instructions to the army to prepare maps of the Golan Heights according to the June 4 borders, using aerial shots and conducting interviews with settlers and soldiers who were in the Golan Heights in the early days that followed the June 1967 war.

The paper did not say whether the order reflected a clear intention by Barak to order his troops to pull back to the June 4 borders. It said that even once those borders are drawn, there would still be a serious dispute between Syria and Israel with regard to the exact lines that separated the two sides before the 1967 war broke out.

Israeli diplomatic sources quoted leaks from Damascus as saying that the Syrian leadership decided to resort to a tactical halt because "President al-Assad cannot allow himself to enter into talks with Israel without a conclusion date." As things appear today, the major point of difference between Syria and Israel is in the approach of each party. The Israelis are pressing on the issues of normalization and security arrangements. The Syrians insist that the issue of full withdrawal should be addressed first and not pushed to the end of the line as Israel has been trying to do.

After it became clear that the talks with Syria would be put on hold, Barak decided to move in the Palestinian direction and initiated a meeting with PNA President Yasser Arafat in Tel Aviv. The meeting took a new meaning because the two leaders were due to have a three-way summit with President Clinton in Washington later this week. But when Barak understood that he was not leaving to the US, he decided to go ahead and meet Arafat to discuss with him the possibility of deferring the deadline for reaching a framework agreement on the final status talks.

Palestinian and Israelis sources alike hinted Tuesday that a sped-up process of negotiations is going to ensue between the PNA and Israel next month away from the Middle East and away from the media. Both sides believe that the farther they are from media coverage, the better are the chances to reach a deal.

Previous Stories:
  PNA angry at Israel's deferral of third phase pullout   (1/17/2000)
  Syria confirms demands to dissolve settlements, evacuate settlers   (1/17/2000)
  Israeli minister calls for reducing representation in talks with Syria   (1/17/2000)
  Report on negotiations on the Syrian track   (1/17/2000)

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