Le Monde and the failure of Geneva summit
Syria-Israel-USA, Politics, 4/17/2000

Under the title "Syria announces mourning on its negotiations with Israel," according to Orient Radio on Saturday, the French daily Le Monde stated that after the failure of negotiations with Israel in the US at the beginning of this year and the summit which brought together President Bill Clinton and Syrian President Hafez al-Assad in Geneva in March, Israel has announced resumption of settlement activities in the Golan and thereby eliminated the last hopes left for any resumption of negotiations.

The French paper added that the new Syrian minister of information, Adnan Omran, says that should the US have proposed special offers instead of repeating the Israeli demands in Geneva it would have played a more useful role and that Barak's proposals are the worst among his previous proposals and were a retreat from UN resolutions, and "a retreat from what was proposed to Syria four months ago," a matter which indicates, according to the paper that the Syrian demand to reach the West Bank of the Tiberias Lake was non-negotiable.

The French paper added and according to western diplomatic sources in Damascus that the Syrians are very worried from the Geneva summit and have not imagined just for one moment that President Clinton would invite President Hafez al-Assad without having anything with him to debate, but just to help his friend Barak before the public opinion.

The paper added that last week Damascus gave explanations requested by Washington in which Damascus reiterated that the gap between the two sides is very deep and there is a conviction in Syria now that waiting for peace will not be calculated in weeks, but in months or years.

Previous Stories:
  Syria is keen to achieve peace, expert says   (4/12/2000)
  Israeli paper: The Syrian track has not finished in Geneva   (3/29/2000)
  Barak denies asking to participate in Geneva summit   (3/23/2000)

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